ADDENDUM. 244 MR. E. OWEN ON THE ANATOMY

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1 244 MR. E. OWEN ON THE ANATOMY ADDENDUM. In the year i836 there were seven living Girafes in England ; three in the Surrey Zoological Gardens and four in the Zoological Gardens in the Regent s Park. The latter were similar in age and size-one was a female, the other three were males. Three of these Girafes were captured in the spring of the year 1535, in the deserts of Kordofan, at which time they were probably not more than one year old. T witnessed their arrival at the Gardens early on the morning of the 25th of May, They had to walk a distance of some miles from the place of their disembarkation to the Gardens; two keepers, each with a long rein attached to the head of the Girafe, led it between them. They walked along at a rapid pace, generally in advance of their conductors. At first sight they seem to move forward simultaneously the two legs of the same side, and these are undoubtedly both off the ground at the same time through the greater part of the step, but upon a close inspection the hind-leg is always seen to be first lifted from the ground, and after a very brief interval the fore-leg of the same side. When they entered the Park and first caught sight of the green trees, they became excited, and hauled upon the reins, waving the head and neck from side to side, with an occasional caracole and kick-out with the hind-legs. M. Thibaud, their captor and chief conductor, contrived, however, to coax them along with pieces of sugar, of which they are very fond. In the sanded paddock appropriated to them at their present abode they enjoy ample space for exercise, and in the warm days of summer they often exhibit all their various and singular paces. In the simple walk, the neck, which is then stretched out in a line with the back, gives them a stiff and awkward appearance ; but this is entirely lost when they commence their graceful, undulating canter : to judge by the movement of the legs, this pace appears not so rapid as it actually proves to be when the extent of ground is observed over which it has carried them in a given time. The motions of the legs are now very peculiar and uncommon : the hind-pair are lifted alternately with the fore, and are carried outside of, and beyond them by a kind of swinging movement : when excited to a swifter pace they often kick out their hind-legs during the course, and their nostrils are then actively and unwontedly dilated. I have observed all the movements of the tongue which have been described by previous authors. The Girafe being endowed with an organ so exquisitely formed for prehension, instinctively puts it to use in a variety of ways while in a state of confinement : the female in the Garden of Plants at Paris, for example, may frequently be observed to amuse itself by stretching upwards its neck and head, and with the slender tongue pulling out the straws which are platted into the partition separating it from the contiguous compartment of its inclosure. In our own menagerie many a fair lady has been robbed of the artificial flower which adorned her bonnet by the nimble, filching tongue of the object of her admiration. The Girafe seems, indeed, to be guided more by the eye than the nose in the selection of objects of food ; and if we map judge of the apparent

2 OF THE NUBIAN GIRAFFE satisfaction with which the mock leaves and flowers so obtained are masticated, the tongue would seem by no means to enjoy the sensitive in the same degree as the motive powers: the difference in the size of the nerves of sense and motion of that organ already mentioned accords with these habits of the living animal. The Girafes have a habit, in captivity at least, of plucking the hairs out of each other s manes and tails, and swallowing them. I know not whether we must attribute to a fondness for epiderniic productions, or to the tempting green colour of the parts, the following ludicrous circumstance which happened to a fine peacock which was kept in the Girafe s paddock. As the bird was spreading his tail in the sunbeams and curveting in presence of his mate, one of the Girafes stooped his long neck, and entwining his flexile tongue round a bunch of the gaudy plumes, suddenly lifted the bird into the air, then giving him a shake, disengaged five or six of the tail-feathers, when down fluttered the astonished peacock and scuffled off with the remains of his train draggling humbly after him. When the Girafe ruminates, he masticates the bolus for about fifty seconds, applying to it from forty to fifty rotatory movement% of the lower jaw, and then swallows it: after an interval of three or four seconds a second bolus is regurgitated; the rapid passage of this mass through the long cervical part of the esophagus is readily visible ; and the physiologist cannot fail to be struck with this instance of the surprising swiftness with which the contractions of the muscular fibres of the gullet succeed each other. By attentively watching, we may perceive a slight contraction of the abdominal parietes accompanying the action of the stomach by which the regurgitation is commenced. This action of the abdominal parietes in rumination is much stronger in the Camel. It is a singular fact, and one which has not hitherto been noticed, that the Cameline Ruminants differ from the true Ruminants in the mode in which the cud is chewed : in the Camels it is ground alterpately in opposite directions from side to side: in the Oxen, Sheep, Antelopes, and Deer, the lower jaw is ground against the upper in the same direction by a rotatory motion : the movements may be: successively from right to left, or from left to right, but they are never regularly alternate throughout the masticatory process, as in tlie Camels : and here, again, in the rotatory motion of the jaws of the Girafe while masticating the cud, we have evidence of its affinity to the horned Ruwinants. Each of the Girafes eats daily eighteen pounds of clover-hay, and eighteen pounds of a mixed vegetable diet, consisting of carrots, mangle-wurzel, barley, split beans and onions ; and drinks about four gallons of water. When the Girafes arrived at the Zoological Gardens, I perceived, by comparing the incisors and anterior molars with those in the skull of an adult animal, that they belonged to the deciduous series. The two middle iricisors were shed in the month of March, 1838, when the animals were little more than three years old ; the two adjoining incisors were shed in the month of July ; the first deciduous molares in October., and the second deciduous molares in November and December of the same year. At VOL. 11.-PART rri. 2 K

3 248 MR. R. OWEN ON THE ANATOMY OF THE NUBIAN GIRAFFE. Fig. 4. The double gall-bladder of a Nubian Girqfe. A probe is represented as passing through the communication of the right compartment with the common cystic duct. PLATE XLIII. Fig. 1. Upper surface of the brain of the Nubian Girufe. Natural size. 2. A portion of the spinal chord including the origins of the third cervical. nerve. a a. The filaments of the posterior fasciculus or root which are continued into corresponding filaments of the adjoining nerves. Natural size. PLATE XLIV. Fig. 1. Lateral view of the brain of the Nubian Girufe. Natural size. 2. Basal view of the same. PLATE, XLV. Fig. 1. The female organs of generation of the Nubian Girafe. Natural size. 'l'he corpus uteri and one of the cornua are laid open to show the cotyledonal processes. 2. The cervix uteri laid open to show the lamellar processes of that part.

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