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Show 278 MR. AV. E. DE WINTON ON THE [Feb. 16, Camelopardalls australis, Swainson, Geogr. & Classif. Anim. p. (1835) (nomen nudum); A.Smith, Bep. Exped. Int. Afr. p. 40 (1836) (nomen nudum). Camelopardalis capensis, Geoffr. (fide Gray) ? ; Ogilby, P. Z. 1836, p. 134 (nomen nudum) ; Lesson, Nouv. Tabl. Beg. An. p. 168 (1842); ex Levaillant, Voy. pis. 8 et 9. Cape Giraffe, Owen, Tr. Z. S. ii. p. 217, pl. xl. (1838). Giraffa australis, Bhoads, P. Ac. Philad. 1896, p. 518 ; ex " S. African form," Thomas, P. Z. S. 1894, p. 135. The ground-colour varies from wdiite to dull fawn, the dark blotches vary from dun to dark coffee-colour, always darker in the middle, the edges being broken and not sharply defined. The legs are spotted down to the hoofs. On the forehead there is a bump of flattened pyramidal form, larger in the males but never forming anything like a horn. The young animal has very narrow clearly-defined white lines between the darker markings, forming a network of lines over the entire body, the dark patches receding with age. Within the last half-century this species has ranged from the Orange to the Zambesi Bivers. Northward of this latter river on the eastern half of the continent, at least, no Giraffe is found for about 12 degrees ; but north of the Bufigi Biver it again appears and continues through German East Africa, reaching westward to the shores of Lake Tanganyika, and occurring east of the Mau Escarpment and south of the Tana Biver in British East Africa. There is no appreciable difference in size between the Northern and Southern forms of Giraffe ; both species vary much in the shades of colouring ; the very old males or " Stink Bulls " (a name given to them from their exceedingly rank and powerful smell) of both species are described by all hunters as being always unmistakably darker than any others of a herd. Mr. Arthur Neumann has kindly lent m e the skin of a foetus taken from a female killed in South Africa, and this shows that the young animal very closely resembles the typical colouring of the adult of the northern species. Mr. F. C. Selous tells me that the calf is always a light brown, with a network of narrow clearly defined white lines separating the dark markings. This is the description I noted clown of the young female captured on the Sabi Biver, when it first arrived'at the Zoological Gardens; a very accurate figure of this animal will be found in ' The Field' of March 9, 1895. This animal is still alive and has not yet lost these characters, though the white markings are rather 'broader and the dark markings less evenly cut. The colour of the dark markings of this 3-year-old animal is coffee-brown, with a still darker irregular pattern in the centre of each patch, thus not at all light-coloured as would be supposed. This quite backs up Mr. F. V. Kirby's opiniou; ' In Haunts of Wild Game,' be says that he feels confident that the animals vary individually and do not darken with age as generally supposed, for one sometimes sees young animals dark-coloured, and unquestionably old animals of a \ ery pale colour. |