The giraffe is one of the swiftest of animals, and it is almost impossible to take an adult alive. They are generally captured while very young, and brought up on camels’ milk, until old enough to eat grain and green fodder. The Western hemisphere gives us no animal corresponding to the giraffe. In South America the llama in some measure represents and takes the place of the camel; but the tall and beautiful giraffe stands alone of his kind. We now turn to the fourth family of the ruminants, distinguished by the fact that they shed and renew their horns. The horns of the cow, ox, sheep, antelope, and goat are permanent. If by any accident they are lost, they are not renewed; but the deer family shed their horns, which indeed, are not properly called horns, but antlers. Antlers are a horny growth, large and branching, divided into what are called tines. Up to a certain age these antlers grow, fall off, and are renewed every year, and there is no mammal peculiarity more wonderful than the rapid growth of these large frontal ornaments. In many of the deer species the male alone wears the antlers. In the reindeer family both males and females have these huge horny branches. The deer family is distinguished for grace of movement and beauty of form. They have smooth, close, hairy coats, but on the breast of the male deer the hair grows long and is called a beard. The eyes are large, clear, and bright, full of gentle eagerness, and furnished on the inner corner with a curious hollow, or gland, called the tear-pit. They have small, pointed ears, and short tails; their legs are slim, and their hoofs are small, the whole animal being built for lightness in running. Even the antlers are not nearly so heavy as they look, for they are porous and full of air-cells. The deer family is distributed over the entire world. Deer vary in size from the large elk or moose, the royal stag, and the magnificent wapiti, to the small roe deer, not so large as a sheep, and the pigmy deer, which is the smallest of all ruminants, and indeed, is not larger than a hare. Deer are vegetable-feeders, and in the coldest climates are capable of living on lichens, and the scantiest fare. In the far north reindeer or caribous furnish the chief wealth of the people, and serve instead of cows, horses, and sheep, their flesh and milk being the chief food-supply, and their skins furnishing clothing and bedding. They serve also as draught animals, and pull sledges over the snow with incredible swiftness.