Major Gordon relates an anecdote of a giraffe slain by himself, which illustrates the gentle, confiding disposition of these graceful creatures. Having been brought to the ground by a musket-ball, it suffered the hunter to approach, without any appearance of resentment, or attempt at resistance. After surveying the crippled animal for some time, the major stroked its forehead, when the eyes closed as if with pleasure, and it seemed grateful for the caress. When its throat was cut, preparatory to taking the skin, the giraffe, while struggling in the last agonies, struck the ground convulsively with its feet with immense force, as it looked reproachfully on its assailant, with its fine eyes fast glazing with the film of death, but made no attempt to injure him. Some of the best and most animating accounts of giraffe hunts are contained in the works of Sir W. Cornwallis Harris and Mr. R.G. Cumming. Of that magnificent folio, "Portraits of the Game and Wild Animals of South Africa," by the former of these gallant sportsmen, we can not speak too highly; it is equal, in many respects, to the truly-superb folios of Mr. Gould. From it we extract the following spirit-stirring adventures: "It was on the morning of our departure from the residence of his Amazoola Majesty, that I first actually saw the giraffe. Although I had been for weeks on the tiptoe of expectation, we had hitherto succeeded in finding the gigantic footsteps only of the tallest of all the quadrupeds upon the earth; but at dawn of that day, a large party of hungry savages, with four of the Hottentots on horseback, having accompanied us across the Mariqua in search of elands, which were reported to be numerous in the neighborhood, we formed a long line, and, having drawn a great extent of country blank, divided into two parties, Richardson keeping to the right, and myself to the left. Beginning, at length, to despair of success, I had shot a hartebeeste for the savages, when an object, which had repeatedly attracted my eye, but which I had as often persuaded myself was nothing more than the branchless stump of some withered tree, suddenly shifted its position, and the next moment I distinctly perceived that singular form of which the apparition had ofttimes visited my slumbers, but upon whose reality I now gazed for the first time. Gliding rapidly among the trees, above the topmost branches, of many of which its graceful head nodded like some lofty pine, all doubt was in another moment at an end--it was the stately, the long-sought giraffe, and, putting spurs to my horse, and directing the Hottentots to follow, I presently found myself half-choked with excitement, rattling at the heels of an animal which, to me, had been a stranger even in its captive state, and which, thus to meet free on its native plains, has fallen to the lot of but few of the votaries of the chase; sailing before me with incredible velocity, his long swan-like