If anyone ever held his head high in this world it is Mr. Giraffe. If you could keep him for a pet he could easily poke his head in at a second-story window, and wake you up in the morning. He could stretch his tongue out, quite two feet, and lick your face, or twist it around a curl and pull your hair with it. And, if he would let you, you could climb out of the window onto his head, and toboggan-slide down his neck and back almost to the ground. You would have to put a feed box on the roof of the barn for him, and give him plenty of hay, corn, grass and carrots, or he would eat the tops of the shade trees. Maybe he would eat them anyhow, for he likes juicy green leaves that he pulls himself, better than anything else.

Guess what kind of an animal the giraffe is. Don't be ashamed if you can't guess. The Arabs on the desert, who have known him longest, gave it up long ago. They named him Xi-raph'a, which means graceful. A name that merely tells what a thing looks like is no name at all. Besides, the giraffe isn't a graceful animal. The Greeks, who were a very wise people, made another guess. They called him camelopard (ca-mel'o-pard) because, like the camel, he has a long neck, and his coat is spotted something like the leopard's. Really, the coloring and markings of the giraffe are more like those of the baby deer. The Greeks may never have seen the pretty spotted fawn of the northern forests, or they would have noticed that. The stretched-up neck, and small, arched, gazelle head of the giraffe are not at all like the thick, bent-down neck and tipped-up face of the camel. Let's look this queer animal all over and see what he is like.

He has the beautifully shaped, split hoofs and the slender legs of the antelopes, but the legs are so lengthened that his body appears to be lifted on stilts. His high shoulders make his fore-legs look much longer than his hind legs, although they are but a few inches longer. He has a short brush mane, from between the ears to the shoulders, like the zebra, and the zebra, you know, is a small striped wild horse. He has the fly-whipper tail of the ox. Isn't that a mixture? But there's more to this living puzzle.

The giraffe's lustrous brown eyes are like those of the woodland deer, in beauty and gentleness, but they are set out from the head even more than the camel's eyes. Indeed, the giraffe can push 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 oh 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.

A sentinel giraffe stands on the outpost of a herd, among the trunks of a clump of thorny mimosa trees, his head just peeping above the crown of leaves. Among the small trees his legs are not noticed. His body appears to be a part of the dancing leaf-shadows and sun-spots. His head, eighteen feet in the air, topping the low growth of the plains, with the open ears, keen nose and stalk eyes, makes a fine watch-tower. It isn't easy to take a herd of giraffes unaware. The only chance the lion has of catching one, is to spring on him while drinking. Even then a giraffe has been known to kick a lion to death. With five minutes' start the swiftest Arabian horse cannot overtake a giraffe.