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standing the amazing and acknowledged power of this superb animal, I greatly question his ability to maintain so long a race under such merciless jockeyship."

Many contradictions in minute points occur in the various descriptions of this animal, but it must be remembered that the same animal is to be seen under different circumstances. Sir Everard Home fancied that the giraffe preferred licking the hand of a lady to that of a man. Mr. Davis tells us he never saw any such exhibition of politeness. In one point all the observers of giraffes in Europe agree that they never make any noise, and that they think the animal would be useless to man in a domesticated state. M. Acerbi gives the following anecdote on this point: "When at Alexandria, I had one day ordered the two giraffes (male and female) taken at Darfur to be led up and down the square in front of my house; among the crowd collected were some Bedouins of the desert. On inquiring of one of them whether he had ever seen similar animals before, he replied that he had not; and I then asked him in Arabic,

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Taib di?' 'Do they please you?' To which he rejoined, Mustaib,' or, I do not like them.'

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"Having desired my interpreter to inquire the motives of his disapproval, he answered, that it did not carry like a horse, it did not serve for field labours like an ox, did not yield hair like a camel, nor flesh and milk like a goat; and on this account it was not to his liking.""

Till 1827 the giraffe had not been seen in Europe since the end of the fifteenth century, when the Soldan of Egypt sent one to Lorenzo di Medici. It was very familiar with the inhabitants of Florence, living on the fruits of the country, especially on apples, and stretching up its long neck to the first-floors of the houses to implore a meal. The first giraffe seen in Europe appears to have been at the period of Julius Cæsar's dictatorship; the Roman Emperors afterwards exhibited them in the cruel games of the Circus, or in their triumphal processions. Gordian III. had ten living giraffes at one time. This creature may be seen on Roman medals.

The Hottentots hunt the animal principally on

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THE GIRAFFE, OR CAMELOPARD.

account of its marrow, which, as a delicacy, they set a high value on. The old travellers (we quote from the "Menagerie") often mentioned the camelopard in the terms of exaggeration which they naturally derived from the reports of Africans. "It was a beast not often seen, yet very tame, and of a strange composition, mixed of a libard, (leopard), harte, buffe, and camel; and by reason of his long legs before and shorter behind, not able to graze without difficulty." Again: "He was so huge that a man on horseback may passe uprighte under him, feeding on leaves from the tops of trees, and formed like a camel."

Heliodorus, the Greek bishop of Sicca, gives a long and curious description of the giraffe, which he ends by saying: "When the animal appeared, it struck the whole multitude with terror, and it took its name from the principal parts of its body, being called by the people extempore Camelopardalis."

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Can look Creation's volume through
And not fresh proofs, at every turn,
Of the Creator's mind discern;
The end to which His actions tend;
The means adapted to the end;

The reasoning thought, the effective skill,
And ruling all, the Almighty will!

BISHOP MANT'S British Months.

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