Evening star., 1893-12-16
THE TALLEST EXTANT ANIMAL.
Male Giranes Have Reached the
Height of Eighteen Feet.

From Knowledge.
Compared with their extinct allies of ear
lier periods of the earth's history. it may be
laid down as a general rule that the large
animals Of the present day are decidedly
inferior in point of size. During the latter
portion of the territorial period, for in
stance, before the incoming of the glacial
epoch. when mammals appeared to have at
tained their maximum development. there
lived elephants alongside of which ordinary
individuals of the existing species would
have looked almost dwarfs, while the cave
bear and the cave hyena attained consider
ably larger dimensions than their living rep
resentatives and some OF the sable-toothed
tigers must have been considerably larger
than the biggest African lion or Bengal hon.
Again, the remains of red deer, bison ana
wild oxen disinterred from the caverns and
other surficial deposits Of this country indi-
cate animals far superior in size to their
deg enerate descendants of the present day,
while some OF the extinct pigs from the
Siwalik hills of northern india miSnt De
compared in stature TO a tapir rather than
TO an ordinary wllu boar. L he SAME stOfS
ia told of reprlIesa lne giant Tortoise or the
S,waIik mills, III spite OIL its diinehsiohS nav
ing peen Co1Siuei dDiy eAd5SSialei' SiSo'iJ
exceedlng size the largest iiVlnS giant
tortoises OF e.Iuer the a4aScarSl4S or the
Galapagos IsIands Inc latter rocks have
also yielded the remains OF IonS-SnOuteu
crocodile, allied to the gaViaI Oh the dahses'
which probably measured Ifon hIty 10
sixIy feet III lengIn, whereas II is very
dolotful III any existing nlemDer of the or
der exceeds naf the smaller OF these ul-
mensions. If, moreover, We took INTO ac-
count totally extinct types, sGcn as the
megathereS and myIodonS or south A,nef-
lea and contrasting them with their near
est living alleS-ln this instance the siotns
and ant eaters-the discrepancy IN SIZE
would be still more marked, but such
comparison would scarcely be analogous TO
the above.
To every rule there is, however. an ex-
ception, and there are a few groups OF hv-
ing large mammals whose existing members
appear never TO nave been surpassed IN size
by their fossil relatives. Foremost among
these are the whales. which now appear to
irclude the largest members or the order
which have ever existed. Tne so-calIed
white or square-mouthed rhinoceros OF
South Africa seems also to be fully equal in
size to any of its extinct ancestors; and the
same is certainly true of the giraffe. which
may even exceed all it's predecessors in this
respect. Whether however, the fossil gl-
RATES. of which more anon, were or were
not the equals in height of the largest IN
dividuals of the living species, there is no
question but that the latter is by far the
taIlest of all living mammals, and that 1t
was only rivaled in this respect among eX-
tinct forms by its aforesaid ancestors.
Moreover. IL we exclude creatures like some
/ OIL
secondary epoch, which, SO to speak, gained
an unfair advantage as regards height 10y
sitting on their hind legs in kangaroo-llke
manner, and limit or comparison TO such
as walk on all four feet in the good old
fashioned way, we shall find that giraffes
are not only the tallest mammals, but like
wise the tallest of all animals that have
ever existed.
AS regards the height attained by the
male Of the talIest quadrupeds, there Is
unfortunately. a lack of accurate informa-
ton, and since 1t is probable that the ma
jority of those now living are inferior in
size to the largest individuals which existed
wi en- the species was far more numerous
than at present. IL is to be feared that this
deficiency i'm our knowledge is not very
likely to be remedied. Rv some writers the
height of the male giraffe Is given at six
teen feet and that of the female o. fourteen
feet, but this Is certainly below the reality.
For instance. Mr.. Fl. A. Dryden states that
female he shot in southern Africa meas
ured seventeen feet to the SUBMITS of the
horns. From the evidence of a very large
though badly preserved specimen in the
Natural History Museum 1t may however,
be inferred that fine males certainly reach
the imposing height of eighteen feet.