his eyes out sideways, as if they were on stalks, and look around behind him without moving his head. Wouldn't he make a grand school teacher? No other animal has eyes just like the giraffe's, and no other grazing animal has an eighteen-inch long, barbed rubbery tongue that he can stretch up another foot, twist around a bunch of leaves and pull them down. It is something like the tongue of the ant-eater or honey-bear. In just two things the giraffe is like the camel. He can close his nostrils against blowing sand, and he can go a long time without water. This is not because he has water pockets in his stomach. He simply seems to need much less water than other animals. Finally, the giraffe's long neck, high shoulders and short body, that form one curved slope from ears to tail, are quite unlike those of any other animal on earth. He is three times the height of a six-foot man, and towers five or six feet above the biggest African elephant.
As an animal, the giraffe is half-way between the ox and the deer. He is most nearly related to the antelopes, of which there are forty varieties in Africa, from the pretty, graceful gazelle to the gnu, or horned horse. But, unlike the ox, deer or antelope, the giraffe has neither horns nor antlers. The two, solid, bony growths on his head are covered with skin and hair, and are topped with tufts of bristles, comically like a pair of your papa's shaving brushes. The giraffe's leg bones are solid, too, while the large bones of all other grazing animals are hollow in the middle. Now, do you know what to call him? "Mr. Graceful Camelopard" is a misfit. He seems to have kept this name only because no other has been found that suits him any better.
Giraffes are very hard animals to find and to capture. Like the true antelopes they are less savage than they are timid. Very wild and shy, they trust to their heels for safety. They live in herds of from a dozen to fifty on the high dry plains of Central Africa, below the desert and east of the tropical forests. Their only enemies are lions, who lie in wait for them in the brush along river banks, and Arab hunters on horses. They are much brighter than camels. Two or three of their number always stand sentinel, while the others feed. This is very necessary, for the tall giraffes are shining marks in an open country. Their short-haired skins ripple and shine like satin with every movement, and in the sun the colors brighten to orange-brown and cream. In the shadow the colors fade and darken to sandy-fawn and seal brown.
