THIS most remarkable ruminant, which in its general structure nearly approaches the Deer, has points of affinity also with the antelopes and camels, besides very striking peculiarities of its own. The head is the most beautiful part of the animal: it is small, and the eyes are large, brilliant, and very full. Between the eyes, and above the nose, is a swelling very prominent and well-defined. This prominence is not a fleshy excrescence, but an enlargement of the bony substance; and it seems to be similar to the two little lumps, or horns, with which the top of the head is armed, and which, being several inches in length, spring on each side of the head, just above the ears, and are terminated by a thick tuft of stiff upright hairs. The neck is remarkably elongated, and it is furnished with a very short, stiff mane, which stands out erect from the skin. The height of a full-grown Giraffe in a wild state is said to be seventeen or eighteen feet, measuring from the hoofs to the tip of the ears; but none of those in England exceed fourteen feet. At first sight, the fore legs appear much longer than the hind ones; but the fact is, that the legs are of the same length, and it is only the height of the withers that occasions the apparent disproportion. Le Vaillant was the first well-informed naturalist who studied the habits of the Giraffe in its wild state. “If,” he says, “among the known quadrupeds, precedency be allowed to height, the Giraffe without doubt must hold the first rank. A male which I have in my collection measured, after I killed it, sixteen feet four inches from the hoof to the extremity of its horns. I use this expression in order to be understood; for the Giraffe has no real horns; but between its ears, at the upper extremity of the head, arise in a perpendicular and parallel direction two excrescences from the cranium, which without any joint stretch to the height of eight or nine inches, terminating in a convex knob, and are surrounded by a row of strong straight hair, which overtops them by several lines. The female is generally lower than the male.... In consequence of the number of these animals which I killed, or had an opportunity of seeing, I may establish as a certain rule that the males are generally fifteen or sixteen feet in height, and the females from thirteen to fourteen feet.” The colour of the Giraffe is a light fawn, marked with spots only a few shades darker. The legs are very slender; and, notwithstanding the length of the neck, it manifests great difficulty in taking anything from the ground. To do this, it puts out first one foot, and then the other; repeating the same process several times; and it is only after several of these experiments that it at length bends down its neck, and applies its lips and tongue to the object in question. In fact, the neck of the Giraffe, although so enormously long, is not very flexible, as it contains only the same