The record-union., 1894-01-20
TALLBsT OF ExTANT ANIMALS.
Male Giraffes Sometimes Grow to til
Hight OF Eighteen Feet.

Male Giraffes Sometimes Grow to the
Hight of Eighteen Feet.
Compared with their extinct allies OF
earlier periods of the earth's history, it is
laid down by KnoOLedge as general rule
that the large animals OF the present day
are decidedly inferior in point Of size.
For instance, before the incoming of the
glacial epoch. when mammals appear to
| have attained their maximum develop
ment, there lived elephants alongside OF
which ordinary individuals Of the exist
| ing species would have looked almost
dwarfs, while the cave bear and the cave
! hyena attained considerably larger di-
mensions than their living representa-
tives, and some of the sable-toothed tigers
must have been considerably larger than
the biggest African lion or Bengal tiger.
/ Again, the remains OF red deer bison and
wild oxen disinterred from the caYerns
and other surticial deposits of this cOun-
! try, indicate animals far superior in size
to their degenerate descendants of the
present day, while some OF the Xtinct
pigs from the Siwalik hills OF Northern
India might be compared in stature to a
| tapir rather than TO an ordinary wild
| boar.
The same story is told of reptiles, the
giant tortoise OF the Siwalik Hills, in
spite of It's dimensions, having been con-
siderably exaggerated. greatly exceeding
in size the largest living giant tortoises
of either the Mascarene or the Gala
pagos Islands. The latter rocks have
/ yielded the remains TO the long-snouted
crocodile, allied to the gaviaI of the Can
ges, which probably measured from fifty
TO sixty feet in length, whereas it is very
doubtful if any existing member OF the
order exceeds half the smaller of these
| dimensions. Ii, moreover, we took into
account totally extinct types, such as the
megatheres and mylodons of South
! America, and contrasting them with their
nearest living allies-in this instance the
| sloths and anteaters-the discrepancy in
size would be still more marked, but such
a comparison would scarcely be analog-
! Gus to the above.
To every rule there is, however, an ex-
! ception, and there are q few groups OF
| living large mammals whose existing
mem bers appear never to have been sur
passed in size by their fossil relatives.
| Foremost among these are the whales,
| which now appear to include the largest
members of the order which have ever
| existed. The sO-called white, or square
| mouth rhinoceros of South Africa seems
| also to be fully equal in size to any Of its
eXtinct ancestors; and the same is cer-
| tainly true of the giraffe, which may even
| exceed all It's predecessors In this respect.
| Whether. however, the fossil giratfes, of
| which mere anon, were or were not the
equals in hight of the largest individuals
of the living species, there is no question
! but that the latter is by far the tallest OF
| all living mammals, and that it was only
riyaled in this respect among extinct
| forms by it's aforesaid ancestors. More
| over, if we exclude creatures like some OF
the gigantic dinosaurian reptiles Of the
secondary epoch, which, so to speak
| gained an unfair advantage as regard
hight by sitting on their hind legs in a
kangaroo-like manner, and limit our
! comparison to such as walk on all four
feet in the good old-fashioned way, we
shall find that giraffes are not the tallest
OF all animals that have ever existed.
| AS regards the highth attained by the
male OF the tallest of quadrupeds, there is,
unfortunately a lack of accurate informa-
ton, and since it is probable that the ma
iority of those now living are inferior in
size to the largest individuals which ex-
listed when the species was for more
numerous than at present. it is to be
feared that this deficiency in our knowl-
edge is not very likely to be remedied.
By some writers the hight of the male
giraffe is given at sixteen feet and that OF
the female at fourteen feet, but this is cer-
tainly below the reality. For instance,
II. A. Dryden states that female he shot
in Southern Africa measured seventeen
feet to the SUBMITS of the horns. From
the evidence of very large though
badly preserved specimen in the Natural
History Museum it may however, be in
ferred that fine males certainly reach the
imposing hight of eighteen feet.