The name Grouse is supposed to come from gorse—furze or heath—and is
applied to many game birds in the family Tetraonidae.
The great majority of Grouse belong to the northern part of America, but
in England the Grouse may be said to have had an effect upon history, as
parliament used always to rise when the season for shooting Grouse
arrived!
The red Grouse is indigenous to Great Britain, but is represented in
other northern countries by the Willow Grouse, which assumes a
protective white color in winter, except that the tail remains black.
The Ruffled Grouse, or pheasant, has caused much dispute in reference to
how it produces the drumming sound which can be heard at a long
distance, and which musical exercise is no doubt intended as a noisy
courtship in wooing his mate.
The distinctive name, “Ruffled,” comes from the ruff of dark feathers,
with iridescent green and purple tints which surrounds the neck. This
bird has a slight crest and a beautifully barred tail. Its note is a
hen-like cluck. No bird has handsomer eyes, with their deep expanding
pupils and golden brown iris.
In a beautiful ravine—which was carpeted with green moss a foot deep and
shaded by evergreen trees hung in soft gray mosses—on an uninhabited
island in northern Lake Superior, I once saw some Canada Grouse so tame
that it appeared as if they might easily be taken in one’s hands. The
parent birds were on one side of the trail, the young ones in a tree on
the other side. All kept quite still for me to look at them, only the
young ones lifted their wings slightly, as if wishing to fly across to
their parents, who seemed to have an expression as of astonishment at
seeing so strange a sight as a human being in their unfrequented
solitudes. The gentlemen of our camping party declared that these Grouse
were so tame it would seem a crime to shoot them.
THE GIRAFFE.
(_Camelopardalis giraffa._)
Should a traveler returning from a far country describe a wonderful
animal, with the head and body of a horse, neck and shoulders of a
camel, ears of an ox, the tail of an ass, the legs of an antelope, and
the coloring and marking of a panther, he would be believed with
difficulty, and yet this combination very fairly describes the curious
and interesting animal known to us as the Giraffe.
This name is a corruption of the Arabian serafe, the lovely one, and
while a single animal, away from its natural surroundings, may not seem
to merit the appellation, in its native woods it produces a very
different impression.
The Giraffe is found in a wide curve, extending over the eastern half of
Africa from Ethiopia as far south as the confines of Cape Colony. Within
this area it frequents the sandy, desert-like portions where small trees
and shrubs abound.
Hunters and explorers describe with enthusiasm the appearance of the
herds of Giraffe, which are sometimes in groups of six or eight, but
more frequently found in larger numbers, often as many as thirty or
forty being together, while one traveler in the Soudan counted on one
occasion seventy-three, and at other times one hundred and three and
over one hundred and fifty in one herd.
Gordon Cumming tells us that “when a herd of Giraffes is seen dispersed
in a grove of the picturesque, umbrella-shaped mimosas, which adorn
their native plains, and on the topmost branches of which their immense
height enables them to browse, the observer would really be deficient in
appreciation of natural beauty if he failed to find the sight a very
attractive one.”
The Giraffe is curiously like the natural objects of the locality in
which he lives. He is found in stretches of country where half decayed,
weather beaten, moss covered trees resemble the long necks of the
animal; so much so that Cumming says he was often in doubt as to the
presence of a whole troop of Giraffe until he had used his spyglass, and
he adds: “Even my half-savage companions had to acknowledge that their
keen, experienced eyes were deceived sometimes; either they mistook
those weather beaten trunks for Giraffes, or else they confounded the
real Giraffes with the old trees.”
Though found in wooded sand belts which are waterless a portion of the
year, the animal of necessity avoids the tall, dense forests, for its
food is chiefly the tender leaves and buds of low-growing trees,
especially the leaves of the mimosa and of the prickly acacia.
These trees are seldom more than twelve or fifteen feet in height, and
with its long legs and neck the Giraffe can easily reach the appetizing
twigs and leaves on the broad flat top of the tree. Moving from one side
to another, as if the tree were a table spread for its use, it throws
out its long snake-like tongue, which it can manipulate with great
dexterity and which it uses as an elephant does its trunk. When we
remember that the largest animals are sometimes eighteen feet in height,
and that the tongue is seventeen or eighteen inches in length, we can
see how easily the Giraffe can take its breakfast, while the tree that
furnishes it serves also as a screen or shield to conceal it from its
enemies.
From the fact that the giraffe will abide in localities which are
waterless for months at a time, it has been supposed that water was not
necessary for its comfort. This is far from the truth, and it has
frequently been seen to drink; its appearance when drinking is most
peculiar, and one who has witnessed the curious operation tells us that
although the animal’s neck is so long, it can not reach the water
without straddling its legs wide apart. This it does by placing one foot
forward and the other as far back as possible, increasing the distance
between them by a series of little jerks, and sometimes they sprawl
their legs out sideways in a similar manner.
[Illustration: GIRAFFE.
(Camelopardalis giraffa.)]
It is at the watering place that the lion lies in concealment waiting
for the Giraffe to appear. Should it remain unconscious of the lion’s
presence, the victory is to the lion, but in the open the Giraffe has an
equal chance with the “king of beasts,” for it can defend itself
valiantly and successfully with vigorous blows from its powerful limbs.
The small horns are not used as a means of defense; they are covered
with skin, and at birth the bones are separate, becoming attached to the
skull at a later period, while the third small horn, especially
observable in the male, is really no horn at all but only a thickening
of the bone at that point.
The head of a Giraffe is really a thing of beauty. On account of the
delicate contour of the muzzle the head appears longer than it really
is. The nostrils can be opened and closed at will, making it possible to
avoid injury from the sand storms which sometimes prevail. The eyes are
the largest for the size of the head of any animal and are wonderfully
gentle, lustrous and beautiful. They are also capable of some lateral
projection so that to a degree the animal can see behind it without
turning its head.
Notwithstanding the extreme length of the neck of the Giraffe it
contains but seven bones, the same number as man.
Its sloping back has led some people to suppose that the legs were
uneven in length; this is an error, as the legs are about the same
length and the feet have delicate, beautifully shaped, divided hoofs.
The tail of the animal is long and finished with a generous tuft of hair
with which it relieves itself of the seroot flies and other stinging
insects which otherwise would become unbearable.
Like the American bison the Giraffe is in danger of extermination. It
originally had a larger range but has been killed in great numbers. The
temptation to hunt the animal is not to be resisted, as the hide of the
bull brings from twenty to twenty-five dollars, the flesh is very fine
eating and the other parts of the body can be put to various uses; the
Arabs use the tendons of the legs for sewing leather, the tail-tufts are
used for fly brushes and the solid leg bones are in England made into
buttons and other bone articles.
The Giraffe is difficult to approach for it is extremely wary, and will
place sentinels to give the herd warning of approaching danger. It is a
rapid runner, although its gait is shambling and peculiar owing to the
fact that it moves like a pacing horse, the fore and hind legs of the
same side moving together.
It is usually hunted on horseback and the animal must be pressed from
the moment he starts; “it is the speed that tells against him, and the
spurs must be at work at the commencement of the hunt and the horse
pressed along at his best pace; it must be a race at top speed from the
very start, for should the Giraffe be allowed the slightest advantage
for the first five minutes the race will be against the horse.”
Europeans and natives alike are fascinated with Giraffe hunting, though
few fail to be struck with the pathetic and half-reproachful expression
of a fallen animal and few hearts are so hardened as to feel no
compunction at “destroying one of the noblest specimens of nature’s
handiwork.”
Mr. Selous, after hunting one day, in recounting his experiences says:
“Even in the ardor of the chase it struck me as a glorious sight to see
those huge beasts dashing along in front, clattering over the stones or
bursting a passage through opposing bushes, their long, graceful necks
stretched forward, sometimes bent almost to the earth to avoid
horizontal branches, and their bushy black tails twisted over their
backs. And how easily and with what little exertion they seemed to get
over the ground, with that long, sweeping stride of theirs!”
The skin of the Giraffe is in many parts so thick that a bullet will not
pierce it, and the surest method of hunting it is that pursued by some
of the Arabs of Abyssinia who run it down while galloping at full speed
and with their broadswords cut the tendons of its legs, thus completely
disabling it. Although the natives love to hunt the animal they love
still more to own a living one and their heads may often be seen peering
over the inclosure in the native villages.
In 1836 four Giraffes were successfully taken to the zoölogical gardens
at Regent’s Park, London. From this time they became somewhat common in
menageries so that many people have seen the living animal, but all view
it with curiosity as did the old Romans in the time of Julius Cæsar,
when individuals were brought to Rome on the occasion of the games. And
it is not strange that at a later date the picture of this curious and
then unknown animal, found on Egyptian monuments, were pronounced “a
dream fancy of an unbridled artistic imagination.”
John Ainslie.