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Show 1904.] SUBSPECIES OF GIRAFFA CAMELOPARDALIS. 225 A large and very dark-coloured Giraffe, without posterior (occipital) horns (text-fig. 36), displaying the "blotched type" of coloration in the most pronounced form, with the two sexes alike as regards the pattern of the spots, but the old bulls much darker than the cows. As regards tlxe distinctive features of the spots, or blotches, it may be observed that the large chocolate-brown, or almost black, body-spots of the old bulls are more or less quadrangular in shape, without showing any tendency to split rrp into stars, and form conspicuous dark blotches upon a tawny ground. This type of coloration is thus the very reverse of the one obtaining in the Nubian G. c. typica, and still more markedly in the Somali G. reticulata, which may be called the " netted type" and consists of a network of lines on a chestnut or liver-coloured ground. The legs are fully spotted and dark-coloured throughout, and the frontal horn is rudimentary. Text-fig. 36. Skull of male Cape Giraffe. It appears, however, that the typical blotched coloration is displayed in its most characteristic form only in the Cape representatives of this race, which is probably now almost or quite exterminated. To this typical representative of the race belongs tlxe old bull presented by Lord Derby to tlxe British Museum arrd formerly exhibited to the public, but now relegated to the store series; it is from this specimen that Plate XVI. has been drawn. In the head and neck of a somewhat younger, and therefore lighter-coloured, bull from tlxe North Kalahari, presented to the Museum by Mr. Bxyden, there is a decided tendency towards PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1904, V O L . I. No. X V . 15 |