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THE

ZOOLOGICAL MAGAZINE,

OR

JOURNAL OF NATURAL HISTORY.

THE GIRAFFE, (Camelopardalis Giraffa, GMEL.)

THE history of the Giraffe affords one of the most striking examples of the slow and uncertain progress of Natural History, and strongly points out the necessity of unwearied research and repeated observation to ensure its advancement. Indeed it appears scarcely credible that the quadruped which exceeds every other in its lofty stature, which bears so remote a resemblance to any in its extraordinary proportions, and is equalled by so few in the beauty of its colouring, should bave remained till within sixty years of the present time so obscurely known as to have had its very existence cast into doubt. But the descriptions of this animal which appeared in the middle ages having been overlooked, the more ancient notices, vague and imperfect as they in general were, while they seemed to ascribe to the camelopardalis a combination of the characteristics of a ferocious beast of prey with those of the harmless ruminant, began at length to be regarded with the same degree of distrust as the fabulous narratives of the unicorn and sphinx.

In the year 1770, after three centuries and a half had elapsed without any example of the giraffe, dead or alive, having appeared in Europe, this impression seems to have become so general, that the Royal Society thought it proper to publish in their Transactions the simple recital of a traveller who had himself seen and procured a representation of the living giraffe. Capt. Carteret, in his communication to that learned body, says, "Inclosed I have sent you the drawing of a camelopardalis, as it was taken off from the life, of one near the Cape of Good Hope. I shall not attempt here to give you any particular description of this scarce and curious. animal, as it is much better known to you than it can be to me; but from its scarcity, as I believe none have been seen in Europe since Julius Cæsar's time (when I think there Zool. Mag. No. 1.

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