"Giraffe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... MM. Wagner and Roth have described a deposit in which they found the remains of the genera Mastodon, Dinotherium, Hipparion, two species of Giraffe, Antelope, and others, some living and some extinct. With them were also associated fossil bones of the Semnopithecus, showing that here, as in the south of France, the quadrumana were characteristic of this period. The whole fauna attests ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... wild animals he might chance to ensnare. He had been fitted out with a large ship and crew, and all the men and implements necessary for this exciting and dangerous task, and had been successful in entrapping two young elephants, a giraffe, a lion, sixteen monkeys, and a great number of parrots. He was now at Java superintending the manufacture of a very powerful net of grass-ropes, an invention of his own, with which he hoped to catch a good many more wild animals, and return ...
— The Last of the Huggermuggers • Christopher Pierce Cranch
... plain man that the effects of use and disuse are transmitted to offspring. So, too, thought Lamarck, who half a century before Darwin propounded a theory of the origin of species that was equally evolutionary in its way. Why does the giraffe have so long a neck? Lamarck thought it was because the giraffe had acquired a habit of stretching his neck out. Every time there was a bad season, the giraffes must all stretch up as high as ever they could towards the leafy tops of the trees; and the one that ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... of large quadrupeds in Africa, some of which are native to no other country. Besides the three members of the zebra family, there is the harmless, shy giraffe, with its beautiful spotted body, its long, slender neck, and its delicate head, which it carries fifteen feet or more from the ground. This graceful animal is also hunted by the natives for its soft skin and its delicate flesh, which ...
— Harper's Young People, August 31, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... from the acknowledged fact that use or disuse may cause the development or the partial atrophy of organs—the case of the 'blacksmith's arm.' Unfortunately some of the suggestions made by Lamarck, in this connexion—like that of the elongation of the giraffe's neck to enable it to browse on high trees—were of a kind that made them very susceptible to ridicule. His theory was of course dependent on the admission that acquired characters were transmitted from parents to children, ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... sensational and extravagant. The mind of the Englishman does not readily accept anything he cannot see or even sometimes anything he can see which is unprecedented in his experience, so that like the West American farmer, confronted for the first time by the sight of a giraffe, his impulse is to cry out ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... scrapbook. A good way to make it fresh and interesting again is to introduce new people or things. You will easily find among your store of loose pictures a horse and cart, or a dog, or a man, or a giraffe, which, when cut out, will fit in amusingly somewhere in the old picture. If you like, a whole book can be altered reasonably in this way, ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... insane pleasure that he took in the actual captures, I can only say that sane men take a pleasure in the slaughter of harmless animals—such as the giraffe—for which they have no need; and other sane men actually go abroad and kill—by barbarous methods—foreign men of estimable character with whom they have no quarrel. This sport they call war and seem to enjoy it. But killing is ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... shalt not stop me." Anarchism adjures us to be bold creative artists, and care for no laws or limits. But it is impossible to be an artist and not care for laws and limits. Art is limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame. If you draw a giraffe, you must draw him with a long neck. If, in your bold creative way, you hold yourself free to draw a giraffe with a short neck, you will really find that you are not free to draw a giraffe. The moment you step into the world of facts, you step into a world ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... presupposes that the vast majority of forms that survive accidental destruction, succumb in the second struggle for life in which the determining factor is some slight individual variation, e.g., a little longer neck in the case of the giraffe, or a wing shorter than usual in the case of an insect on an island. The whole theory of struggle, as formulated by Darwin, is, therefore, a violent assumption. Men of science now recognize that "egoism and struggle play ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... declared that he should take the boss who had been so kind to his boys, and both the young bosses, to a wild place where they would find game in abundance, and where the forests held the great rhinoceros, plenty of elephants, and amongst whose open glades the tall giraffe browse the leafage of the high trees. There in the plains were herds of buffalo too numerous to count, quagga, zebra, gnu, eland, and bok of all kinds. There was a great river there, he said, full of fish, ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... recitation-bench capable of seating fifteen or twenty pupils. A pair of globes, tattooed with dragons and winged horses, occupied a shelf between two windows, which were so high from the floor that nothing but a giraffe could ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... and when we see majesty itself, after making the experiment of yachts and frigates, quietly and comfortably return to its palace on board a steamer, we may be the less surprised at finding the Marquis of Londonderry and his family making their way across the Channel in the steamer Giraffe. Yet it is to be remarked, that though nothing can be more miscellaneous than the passengers, consisting of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, and Yankee; of Jews, Turks, and heretics; of tourists, physicians, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... refuge behind the deficiency of the geological record, and to suppose facts and proofs may hereafter be discovered, when few are now known to favor the new hypothesis. We can see no more reason why a giraffe should have had a long neck, because he wished to crop the leaves of tall trees, than that mankind should have become winged, because in all times both children and men have wished to fly. Nor do we ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... later we are ascending the staircase leading to Aunt Ursula's. My wife counts the steps as she pulls herself up by the hand-rail, and I carry the famous cushion, the bonbons, and my son, who has insisted on bringing his giraffe ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... was to me rather a memorable one, as the first on which I saw and slew the lofty, graceful-looking giraffe or camelopard, with which, during many years of my life, I had longed to form an acquaintance. These gigantic and exquisitely beautiful animals, which are admirably formed by nature to adorn the fair forests that clothe the boundless plains of the interior, are widely distributed ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... Swinton; "but I do not think that there are many lions in the country we have traversed; it is too populous. On the other side of the mountains, if we return that way, we shall find them in plenty. Wherever the antelopes are in herds, wherever you find the wild horse, zebra, and giraffe, you will as certainly find the lion, for he preys ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... dimensions, had from the first opined would not hold more than two enormous portmanteaus in some odd corner out of sight (portmanteaus which could now no more be got in at the door, not to say stowed away, than a giraffe could be persuaded or forced into a flower-pot): that this utterly impracticable, thoroughly hopeless, and profoundly preposterous box, had the remotest reference to, or connection with, those chaste and pretty, not to say gorgeous little bowers, sketched by a masterly ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... the metals! The newcomer has but a theoretical knowledge at best of all these animals; and he is intensely interested in identifying the various species. The hartebeeste and the wildebeeste he learns quickly enough, and of course the zebra and the giraffe are unmistakable; but the smaller gazelles are legitimate subjects for discussion. The wonder of the extraordinary abundance of these wild animals mounts as the hours slip by. At the stops for water or for orders the passengers gather ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... the room. One was the long Mr Pilkington. The other, who looked shorter and stouter than he really was beside his giraffe-like companion, was a thickset, fleshy man in the early thirties with a blond, clean-shaven, double-chinned face. He had smooth yellow hair, an unwholesome complexion, and light green eyes, set close together. From the edge of the ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... you are only seven years, you are old enough to read a boys' book about wild animals. Lions will catch and eat nearly all beasts that come in their way. They will even overpower a giraffe or a buffalo. The elephant and rhinoceros are almost the only quadrupeds a lion ...
— Harper's Young People, January 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... been trying to make men exult in the 'wonders' of creation, but it has forgotten that a thing cannot be completely wonderful so long as it remains sensible. So long as we regard a tree as an obvious thing, naturally and reasonably created for a giraffe to eat, we cannot properly wonder at it. It is when we consider it as a prodigious wave of the living soil sprawling up to the skies for no reason in particular that we take off our hats, to the astonishment ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... "I'm a giraffe, am I not?" she declared; "and I'm still growing. Do show me your garden, Mr. Pengarth. I want to see your hollyhocks. Everyone ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... before the fireplace. Kate would not go to bed. She determined to stay awake until Harry should come home. But the sofa-cushions became more and more pleasant, and very soon she was dreaming that Harry had shot a giraffe, and had skinned it, and had stuffed the skin full of sumac-leaves, and that he and she were pulling it through the woods, and that the legs caught in the trees and they could not get it along, and then she woke up. It was bright daylight. But ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... N. height, altitude, elevation; eminence, pitch; loftiness &c adj.; sublimity. tallness &c adj.; stature, procerity^; prominence &c 250. colossus &c (size) 192; giant, grenadier, giraffe, camelopard. mount, mountain; hill alto, butte [U.S.], monticle^, fell, knap^; cape; headland, foreland^; promontory; ridge, hog's back, dune; rising ground, vantage ground; down; moor, moorland; Alp; uplands, highlands; heights &c (summit) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... intercrossing of existing forms, and above all to the actual efforts of animals themselves. In other words, he had not discovered natural selection, the cardinal idea of Charles Darwin's epoch-making book. For him, the giraffe had acquired its long neck by constant reaching up to the boughs of trees; the monkey had acquired its opposable thumb by constant grasping at the neighbouring branches; and the serpent had acquired its sinuous shape by constant wriggling through the grass of the meadows. Charles Darwin improved ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... belongs to the position of the great,' says Matarazzo, 'to keep horses, dogs, mules, falcons, and other birds, court-jesters, singers, and foreign animals.' The menagerie at Naples, in the time of Ferrante, contained even a giraffe and a zebra, presented, it seems, by the ruler of Baghdad. Filippo Maria Visconti possessed not only horses which cost him each 500 or 1,000 pieces of gold, and valuable English dogs, but a number of leopards brought from all parts of the ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... giraffe appears suddenly in the later Tertiary deposits of Europe and Asia. The evidence points to an invasion from Africa, and, as the region of development is unknown and unexplored, the evolution of the giraffe remains a matter of speculation. Chevrotains flourished in ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... of pearls of Ormuz, and soft shawls of Cachemire. Encircled by his children, each of whom held alternately a white or fawn-coloured gazelle, an Arab clothed in his blue bornouz, led by a thick cord of crimson silk a tall and tawny giraffe. Fifty stout men succeeded two by two, carrying in company a silver shield laden with gold coin, or chased goblets ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... unless he feels that what he pays with his right hand he will get back with his left, either out of the pocket of a man who isn't looking, or out of the envy of the poor neighbour who IS looking, but can't afford the figure. The seats are cheap. Why should A People, fabulous and lofty giraffe, want to charge or pay high prices? If it were THE PEOPLE now.—But it isn't. It isn't Plebs, the proletariat. The seats ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... deep holes, at the bottom of which sharp-pointed stakes were fixed, the pits being then carefully covered over with branches and grass, so as completely to conceal them. Similar pitfalls are used in many parts of Africa for entrapping the giraffe and other wild animals. ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... that old story about the farmer at the circus," said Grant. "He looked at the giraffe for a long time and then finally turned away in disgust. 'Oh, shucks,' he said, 'there ain't no such animal.' That's the way I feel about this island. There isn't any ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... man when he saw a giraffe for the first time? But he was wrong, my girl, for nature does ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... Fricka? What a pretty name! I got quite excited when Nordica sang a yelling sort of a scream high up on the rocks. Not at the music, however, but I expected her to fall over and break her neck. She didn't, and shouting Wagner's music at that. Why it would twist the neck of a giraffe! Quite at sea, I saw the brother and sister come in and violently quarrel, and Nordica return and sing a slumber song, for the sister slept and the brother looked cross. Then more gloom and a duel up in the clouds, and once more ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... grown to manhood without our assistance. He went away undersized, pale, with a meager little neck and a sort of wistful Nicholas Nickelby expression. When he returned at the Christmas vacation he had gained ten pounds, was brown and freckled, and looked like a small giraffe in pantalets. ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... from his pocket. After three years he came across her again, and calling her by name, she came up and put her trunk into the same pocket as of old. On the trip over he carried 1200 animals, only two dying, one being the giraffe which fell down a hatchway and broke his neck in two places—somehow a very fitting death for ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... Mayor of Gueldersdorp, that stalwart Yorkshireman, mighty hunter of elephant, rhino, giraffe, and lion in the reckless days of bloodshed that were before the introduction of the Game Laws into South Africa, was ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... pulled Nelly Martin's hair, and was sent down three. Then I was fourth, and my pencil squeaked my slate and I was sent down six. Then Cyril had to spell 'giraffe,' and I said 'one r and two f's,' and she ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... now be recognized, though several are clearly sub-tribes of the Sioux. The Ohio is called "Ouaboustikou." The whole map is decorated with numerous figures of animals, natives of the country, or supposed to be so. Among them are camels, ostriches, and a giraffe, which are placed on the plains west of the Mississippi. But the most curious figure is that which represents one of the monsters seen by Joliet and Marquette, painted on a rock by the Indians. It corresponds with Marquette's description (ante, p. 59). This map, if really the work of Joliet, does ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... very kind to her creatures," said a giraffe to an elephant. "For example, your neck being so very short, she has given you a proboscis wherewith to reach your food; and I having no proboscis, she has bestowed upon me ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... hunters. Besides the lion and the leopard, there were many other great cats, some of remarkable beauty. Besides the elephant, which was in some districts very abundant, there existed two kinds of rhinoceros, as well as the hippopotamus and the giraffe. There was a wonderful profusion of antelopes,—thirty-one species have been enumerated,—including such noble animals as the eland and koodoo, such beautiful ones as the springbok and klipspringer, such fierce ones as the blue wildebeest or gnu. There were two kinds of zebra, ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... all committed the blunder of clumping the two cycles of causation into one. What preserves an animal with his peculiarity, if it be a useful one, they saw to be the nature of the environment to which the peculiarity was adjusted. The giraffe with his peculiar neck is preserved by the fact that there are in his environment tall trees whose leaves he can digest. But these philosophers went further, and said that the presence of the trees not only maintained an animal with a long neck to browse upon ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... of apples, and the flotation of bubbles are all examples of gravitation: or that the purifying of the blood by breathing, the burning of a candle, and the rusting of iron are all cases of oxidation: or that the colouring of the underside of a red-admiral's wings, the spots of the giraffe, the shape and attitude of a stick-caterpillar, the immobility of a bird on its nest, and countless other cases, though superficially so different, agree in this, that they conceal and thereby ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... multiplied form only enhances this confusion. Beside which, these labels are of necessity frequently placed at such a height that, in order to decipher them, the head of the observer needs to be perched on a neck somewhat like the giraffe. So forcibly impressed am I with the soundness and value of this newly-devised plan, that I am led to predict that its adoption will sooner or later find favour among other kindred institutions ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... intellectual powers with, but, as they became a novelty, there was new zest in occasionally seeing them. After I had been there a short time, I heard a call one day: "Heads out!" I ran with the rest and exclaimed, "What is it?" expecting to see a giraffe or some other wonder from Barnum's Museum. "Why, don't you see those boys?" said one. "Oh," I replied, "is that all? I have seen boys all my life." When visiting family friends in the city, we were ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... that I Am not in that lion's cage, because Suppose he'd open his horrible jaws! —But look! the clown is coming! Of course Facing the tail of a spotted horse And shouting out things to make folks laugh, And grinning up at the tall giraffe That placidly paces along and looks Just like giraffes ...
— Child Songs of Cheer • Evaleen Stein
... species, . . . but the view here developed tenders such an hypothesis quite unnecessary. . . . The powerful retractile talons of the falcon and the cat tribes have not been produced or increased by the volition of those animals, neither did the giraffe acquire its long neck by desiring to reach the foliage of the more lofty shrubs, and constantly stretching its neck for this purpose, but because any varieties which occurred among its antitypes with a longer neck than usual AT ONCE SECURED A ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... impartially. But when she met Mary Rose's eyes, filled with a great hunger for merry-go-rounds, she laughed softly and told Mr. Jerry that, of course, she wouldn't take a dare, she never had and she never would, and she thought she'd choose the giraffe because his long neck gave a rider ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... darling, that's the bear That tore the naughty boys to pieces; Horned cattle!—only hear How the dreadful camel wheezes! That's the tall giraffe, my boy, Who stoops to hear the morning lark; 'Twas him who waded Noah's flood, And scorned the refuge ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... looks at you as if you were a giraffe or something and she would like to take a pot at ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... crossing of already existing forms, and much to use and disuse, that is, to the effects of habit. To this latter agency he seems to attribute all the beautiful adaptations in nature; such as the long neck of the giraffe for browsing on the branches of trees. But he likewise believed in a law of progressive development, and as all the forms of life thus tend to progress, in order to account for the existence at the present day of simple productions, he maintains that such forms are now spontaneously generated. ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... presented a fearsome sight. Lions, bears, tigers, monkeys, a giraffe and a donkey, were followed by clowns, acrobats, trapeze ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... lions; the bow used in the chase was similar to that employed in war. All the subjects of the chase were sculptured on the monuments with great spirit and fidelity, especially the stag, the ibex, the porcupine, the wolf, the hare, the lion, the fox, and the giraffe. The camel is not found among the Egyptian sculptures, nor the bear. Of the birds found in their sculptures were vultures, eagles, kites, hawks, owls, ravens, larks, swallows, turtle-doves, quails, ostriches, storks, plovers, snipes, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... that so?" He got up and looked down at the canvas, bending above it like some genial giraffe. He straightened himself, smiling. "'Tis kind o' dobby," he admitted. ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... pinned up their Garments and put Resin on their Hands and cut loose. They did the Grizzly Bear and the Mountain Goat and the Turkey Trot and the Bunny Hug and the Kangaroo Flop and the Duck Waddle and the Giraffe Jump and the Rhinoceros Roll and the Walrus Wiggle and the Crocodile Splash and the Apache and the Comanche and the Bowery Twist and the Hula ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... division comprises arguments from example. That is, if a truth be asserted of an individual, it can therefore be predicated of the class to which the individual belongs. For instance, if the first time a person saw a giraffe, he observed that it was eating grass, he would be justified in saying that giraffes are herbivorous. All gold is yellow, heavy, and not corroded by acid, though no one has tested it all. However, every giraffe does not ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... to learn in the way of sanitation, and yet more as to the advisability of a daily bath, for while even in hotels they give one an enormous carafe, which might be called a giraffe, its neck is so long, filled with drinking water surrounded by endless tumblers, the basin is scarcely bigger than a sugar bowl, while the jug is about the ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... huge Jeekie blundered along after him, the paraphernalia with which he was hung about rattling like the hoofs of a galloping giraffe. Nor for all his load did he ever turn a hair. Whether it were fear within or a desire to save his master, or a belief in the virtues of Little Bonsa, or that his foot was, as it were, once more upon his native ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... of giraffe two days later, but so far off as to be beyond pursuit; but before evening, just as they were about to camp by some pools, ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... a clattering of hoofs behind him, and Ribsy came galloping along the road, with nothing on him but his collar. He was holding his big head high in the air, like a giraffe, and gazing proudly about him as he ran. He stopped short when he saw the little boy, and, giving a triumphant whistle, said ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... as it is called, is such a protuberance, though it does not exceed a few inches in height, and is far from agreeing with the descriptions of the horn of the unicorn. The nearest approach to a horn in the middle of the forehead is exhibited in the bony protuberance on the forehead of the giraffe; but this also is short and blunt, and is not the only horn of the animal, but a third horn, standing in front of the two others. In fine, though it would be presumptuous to deny the existence of a one-horned quadruped other than the rhinoceros, it may be safely stated ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... him!—I should think so, my little Wenceslas!" cried Valerie, calling the artist to her, taking his face in her hands, and kissing his forehead. "A poor boy with no fortune, and no one to depend on! Cast off by a carrotty giraffe! What do you expect, Crevel? Wenceslas is my poet, and I love him as if he were my own child, and make no secret of it. Bah! your virtuous women see evil everywhere and in everything. Bless me, could they not sit by a man without doing wrong? I ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... pretty name,' snarled Slivers, prodding the ground with his wooden leg, as he always did when angry. 'Neither are you. What do you mean by banging into my office like an insane giraffe?'—this in allusion ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... trumpets; the twenty-four prancing steeds with manes, tails, and feathered heads tossing in the breeze; the clowns, the tumblers, the strong men, and the riders flying about in the air as if the laws of gravitation no longer existed. But, best of all, was the grand conglomeration of animals where the giraffe appears to stand on the elephant's back, the zebra to be jumping over the seal, the hippopotamus to be lunching off a couple of crocodiles, and lions and tigers to be raining down in all directions with their mouths, wide ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... make saddle-cloths of 'em for the band of the forty-ninth Hussars. Your Majesty may have reckonized 'em; most people think it's giraffe skin, but ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... to place confidence in someone, and it has reference to a person. I say that I know that there is an animal called the horse, and that it has such and such characteristics, because I have seen it; and I say that I believe in the existence of the giraffe or the ornithorhyncus, and that it possesses such and such qualities, because I believe those who assure me that they have seen it. And hence the element of uncertainty attached to faith, for it is possible that a person may be deceived or ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... responsible for them in captivity are constantly harassed by fears that they will stampede in their stalls or yards, and break their own necks and legs in most unexpected ways. They require greater vigilance than any other hoofed animals we know. Sometimes a giraffe will develop foolishness to such a degree as to be unwilling to go out of its own huge door, into a shady ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... you rode a giraffe, Or mounted the back of an ox; It's nobody's habit to ride on a rabbit, Or try to bestraddle a fox. But as for a Camel, he's Ridden by families— Any ...
— The Best Nonsense Verses • Various
... songs. From where I sat I could perceive the circle of gaudily painted beasts that revolved about this musical atrocity. A fashion of horses seemed to predominate, but there was also an ostrich (a bearded Frenchman being astride this bird for the moment), a zebra, a lion, and a gaudily emblazoned giraffe. I shuddered as I thought of the evil possibilities that might be suggested to my two companions by this affair. For the moment I was pleased to note that they had forgotten my supposed indisposition, yet another equally absurd complication ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... friends the squirrels, to whom we have certainly devoted quite sufficient attention, we pass along to quite a different race of animals—that of the giraffe or camelopard. This is a noble-looking animal, as you see plainly enough by the engraving. The tongue of the giraffe is exquisitely contrived for grasping. In its native deserts, the animal uses it to hook down branches which are beyond the reach of its muzzle; and in the menagerie ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... have died out. Just the same with the curious fly-trap in Dionoea. Whatever may be its benefit to the plant, till the whole apparatus as it now is, was complete, it would have been of no use. In the animal kingdom also, instances might be given: the giraffe has a long neck which is an advantage in getting food that other animals cannot reach; but what would have been the use of a neck which was becoming—and had not yet become—long? here intermediate stages would not have ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... ago, say the geologists, there were great forests where Louisiana now is. Among these mighty trees roamed the glyptodont; the 16-foot armadillo with a tail like the morning-star of the old crusaders, monstrously magnified; the giraffe camel; the titanothere; the Columbian elephant, about the size of a trolley car and with 15-foot tusks; the giant sloth which could look into a second-story window; here the saber-toothed tiger fought with the megatherium; mighty rhinoceroses sloshed ...
— The Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor of New Orleans • Thomas Ewing Dabney
... standing empty to the sun, the wind, and the rain. The country bore some resemblance to the country west of Redjaf on the White Nile, the home of the giant eland; only here there was no big game, no chance of seeing the towering form of the giraffe, the black bulk of elephant or buffalo, the herds of straw-colored hartebeests, or the ghostly shimmer of the sun glinting on the coats of roan and eland as they vanished silently in the gray sea of ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... All these, from their practice of "chewing the cud," are called "ruminants," and they are multitudinous in kinds. The great plains of Southern Africa are the special home of most kinds of antelope, and the giraffe is exclusively African. Deer have their head-quarters in Asia, though they exist in South America as well as ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... than it seemed formerly, and still appears to most thinkers on the subject...The uses of the rattling of the rattlesnake as a protection by warning its enemies and as a sexual call are not rival uses; neither are the high-reaching and the far-seeing uses of the giraffe's neck 'rivals.'"), and aided by the effects of use, etc. The subject seems to me well worth further development. I do not think I have anywhere noticed the use of the eyebrows, but have long known that they protected the eyes from sweat. During the voyage of the "Beagle" ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... earlier editions Erasmus Darwin and Buffon were not so much as named. Mr. Wallace, on the contrary, at once raised the Lamarckian spectre, and declared it exorcized. He said the Lamarckian hypothesis was "quite unnecessary." The giraffe did not "acquire its long neck by desiring to reach the foliage of the more lofty shrubs, and constantly stretching its neck for this purpose, but because any varieties which occurred among its antitypes with a longer neck than usual at once secured a fresh ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... theory, chance gave the bird its wings, the fish its fins, the porcupine its quills, the skunk its fetid secretion, the cuttlefish its ink, the swordfish its sword, the electric eel its powerful battery; it gave the giraffe its long neck, the camel its hump, the horse its hoof, the ruminants their horns and double stomach, and so on. According to Weismann, it gave us our eyes, our ears, our hands with the fingers and opposing thumb, it gave us all the complicated and ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... the prey in a pack; that is, the lion and the lionesses all hunt the prey together; and they are even helped by the older cubs. They need to hunt in a pack when the prey happens to be large, such as a buffalo or a giraffe. A lion by himself could seldom kill ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... and its allies with horns and without upper incisors as the Buffalo, Stag Fallow Deer, Wild Goat, Swine, Goat, wild Goats Muskdeers, Chamois, Giraffe. ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... soil erosion; deforestation; desertification; wildlife populations (such as elephant, hippopotamus, giraffe, and lion) threatened because ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Davy," said the tall, angular fellow who seemed to own the queer name of Giraffe, though his long neck plainly proved why it had been given to him by his mates. "But don't it beat the Dutch how many times Doe Hobbs has had to give up a jolly trip, and hurry back home, just when the fun ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... wild goats by the beard; Whistle to the cockatoos, and mock the hairy-faced baboon; Worship mighty Mumbo Jumbo in the mountains of the moon. I myself, in far Timbuctoo, leopard's blood shall daily quaff; Ride a tiger hunting, mounted on a thoroughbred giraffe." ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... flight, and this gain consisted first in rising from the toes, lifting the heels completely off the ground. At the same time the leg and foot were gradually lengthened. Doubtless in this way the fleet animals, like the deer, the horse and the giraffe, first came by their long legs. Constant elimination of the short-legged ones, by the pursuing enemy, resulted in the selection of the long-limbed ones for breeding purposes, and hence to the ultimate elongation of the legs ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... tenet of Darwin's theory of racial inheritance or evolution, was that changes in animal life, wild or domestic, were brought about by the addition of very slight, perhaps imperceptible, variations. He argued that the giraffe with the longest neck could browse on higher leaves in time of drought and hence left offspring with slightly longer ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... woodpecker and the humming-bird have got their peculiarly long tongues from the habit of extracting their food with their tongues from deep and narrow folds or canals; the frog has developed the web between his toes by his own swimming; the giraffe has lengthened his neck by stretching up to the higher branches of trees, and so on. It is quite certain that this use or disuse of organs is a most important factor in organic development, but it is not sufficient to explain ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel
... month, and that the direction of their departure had been obscure. So we worked our way down the stream, trying out the possibilities. Of other game there seemed to be a fair supply: impalla, hartebeeste, zebra, eland, buffalo, wart-hog, sing-sing, and giraffe we had seen. I had secured a wonderful eland and a very fine impalla, and we had had a gorgeous close-quarters fight with a cheetah.* Now C. had gone out, a three weeks' journey, carrying to medical attendance a porter injured ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... Jackson, and was brought by Andrew Jackson, junior, who said his father could let me have it for a month on trial. Jackson, junior, was anxious to go away without the horse, but I told him to wait a bit while I put on the harness. The animal was of a mouse colour, very tall, something like a giraffe; and by the time I got him between the shafts, I could see that he was possessed by a devil of some kind. It might be a winged one who would fly away with me; so, in order to have a clear course, I led him through the gateway into the middle of the road, and while Jackson, junior, held ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... lately passed, we might now imagine ourselves in an extensive park. A lawn, level as a billiard-table, was everywhere spread with a soft carpet of luxuriant green grass, spangled with flowers, and shaded by spreading mokaalas—a large species of acacia which forms the favourite food of the giraffe. The gaudy yellow blossoms with which these remarkable trees were covered yielded an aromatic and overpowering perfume—while small troops of striped quaggas, or wild asses, and of brindled gnoos ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... the camp, the party immediately commenced cutting up the elephant, while messengers were despatched to summon carriers to convey the flesh and tusks. As soon as it was sent off the hunters continued the chase. Ned shot a zebra, which raised him in the estimation of his companions. A giraffe was also seen, and creeping up to it among the long grass the party surrounded it. Before it could escape a bullet from Sayd's gun wounded it in the shoulder, when spears and javelins thrust at it from every side soon ended its life. There was great rejoicing when this meat ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... like a female giraffe!" put in Grace Laning. "Sam acted a little boy splendidly. Sam, don't you ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... northern Transvaal, and oftentimes into the wilderness beyond the Zambesi. Women and children accompanied the expeditions and remained behind in the ox-waggons while the men rode away into the bush to search for buck, giraffe, and lion. Hardy men and women these were who braved the dangers of wild beasts and the terrors of the fever country, yet these treks to the north were as certain annual functions as the Nachtmaals in the churches. Men ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... that was pickin'-up at Big Billabong," said the Giraffe. "He had to knock off the first week, an' he's been here ever since. They're sendin' him away to the hospital in Sydney by the speeshall train. They're just goin' to take him up in the wagonette ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... assembly; and Indra's longing was so intense that his body became all eyes. In this myth may be seen exemplified the effect of Desire and Will in the forms of life, function and shape—all following Desire and Need, as in the case of the long neck of the giraffe which enables him to reach for the high branches of the trees in his native land; and in the long neck and high legs of the fisher birds, the crane, stork, ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... Daubenton had also slightly anticipated Cuvier's law of correlation, giving "a very remarkable example of the mode of procedure to follow in order to solve these kinds of questions by the way in which he had recognized a bone of a giraffe whose skeleton he ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... the rival of the lion, that we have honoured so long in the arms of England. But we sincerely hope, that by the next arrival, it will not degenerate into a cow, or worse, a goat. But he tells us, that to our knowledge of the giraffe he has added considerably. He obtained in Nubia and Kordofan five specimens, two of which were males and three females. He regards the horns as constituting the principal generic character, they being formed by distinct bones, united to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various
... cab he recovered suddenly, and told her she looked awfully pretty, which cheered her very much. She was feeling rather tired. She had spent several hours in the nursery that day, pretending to be a baby giraffe with so much success that Archie had insisted upon countless encores, until, like all artists who have to repeat the same part too often, she felt ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... striatum), or, in the language of hunters, "moose-wood." He peels off the bark from old trees of this sort, and feeds upon it, as well as upon several species of mosses with which the arctic regions abound. It will be seen that in these respects he resembles the giraffe: he may be regarded as the giraffe of ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... jauntily, impatiently shuffled their sandals of giraffe hide, and hitched up their belts in which were ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... came unquestionably next. It made a processional entry into the town almost as impressive as the circus's, and the boys went out to meet it beyond the corporation line in the same way. It always had two elephants, at least, and four or five camels, and sometimes there was a giraffe. These headed the procession, the elephants in the very front, with their keepers at their heads, and then the camels led by halters dangling from their sneering lips and contemptuous noses. After these began to come the show-wagons, ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... all other species of animals that inhabit the country around them—even the strong heavy rhinoceros is not feared by them, though the latter frequently foils and conquers them. Young elephants sometimes become their prey. The fierce buffalo, the giraffe, the oryx, the huge eland, and the eccentric gnoo, all have to succumb to their ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... period especially shows African animals, such as the giraffe and the different kinds of antelopes, mixed with Arabian mottoes; and the patterns are generally woven with gold. This is merely gilt parchment, the silk ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... looked upon as an entirely different species of animal from a man born of a noble, it made him no more uncomfortable or ashamed to remain that different species of animal, than it makes a horse ashamed to remain a horse, and not to become a giraffe. But now that a man may make money, and rise in the world, and associate himself, unreproached, with people once far above him, not only is the natural discontentedness of humanity developed to an unheard-of extent, whatever a man's position, but it becomes a veritable shame to him to remain ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... monsters live in Afriky, and are believed to be human beins to a slight extent, altho' they are not allowed to vote. In this department is one or two superior giraffes. I never woulded I were a bird, but I've sometimes wished I was a giraffe, on account of the long distance from his mouth to his stummuck. Hence, if he loved beer, one mugful would give him as much enjoyment while goin down, as forty mugfuls would ordinary persons. And he wouldn't get intoxicated, which is a beastly way of amusin oneself, I must ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 5 • Charles Farrar Browne
... among the uncivilised, and independently of the special circumstances of life. It is even found among animals also, and is said to be notably obvious in giraffes. It will hardly be argued that the female giraffe leads a more confined and domestic life ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... they worthless as friends. In the hunt they helped her locate her quarry. Often they would come racing through the trees to her side to announce the near presence of antelope or giraffe, or with excited warnings of the proximity of Sheeta or Numa. Luscious, sun-kissed fruits which hung far out upon the frail bough of the jungle's waving crest were brought to her by these tiny, nimble allies. Sometimes they played tricks upon her; but she was always kind ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... then! The elephant on the top, and his trunk stretched out; in a minute or two he would have unfastened the wire; the giraffe's long neck was stretched out; one dove flew away directly, and some crows sat on the eaves. Mr. and Mrs. Dyer and Jedidiah started back, while the elephant with his trunk helped out some of the smaller animals, who stepped into rows on the ironing-board ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... Jim, who also contemplated the prodigy, "that big, chunky, awkward-lookin' things are sometimes ez spry ez you. They say that the Hipperpotamus kin outrun the giraffe across the sands uv Afriky, an' I know from pussonal experience that the bigger an' clumsier a b'ar is the faster he kin make you scoot fur your life. But he's the real Dutch, ain't he, Paul, one uv them fellers that licked the Spanish under the ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... views soon being lost sight of. They nowhere found a support in facts; the force of habit played in them an exaggerated and unnatural role; the different illustrations of them—such as the long neck of the giraffe explained by the permanent and inherited habit of browsing on the branches of high trees, or the web on the toes of frogs, swimming-birds, etc., explained by the habit of swimming—were talked about and laughed at more as curiosities than as ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... evening at ten o'clock. There was a fire at my wood-seller's. The sky was rose color and the Seine the color of gooseberry sirup. I worked at the engine for three hours and I came home as worn out as the Turk with the giraffe. ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... them and listening to their music, made a curious discovery about himself. Deeply buried in Peter's soul were the ghosts of all sorts of animals; Peter had once been a boa-constrictor, Peter had once been a bear, Peter had once been a rabbit and a giraffe, a turkey and a fox; and now under the spell of this weird music these dead creatures came to life in his soul. So Peter discovered the meaning of "jazz," in all its ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... being giddy at the sight. Soon after our arrival, the band commenced playing, and some of the company arranged themselves for a dance. Old Sir Cayman Alligator, an East-Indian Director, led out the graceful Lady Caroline Giraffe, who, I must say, deserved the praise young Nightingale bestowed upon her, when he said, she was one of "Nature's nobility." I could not but admire her large, full eyes, which looked at you so tenderly, and the gentle bending of her beautiful neck; and then, what ...
— Comical People • Unknown
... only baby who never makes a noise (Which must be very puzzling to little girls and boys). Yet the Giraffe is happy 'though he cannot shout or sing, For with that great long neck of ...
— Animal Children - The Friends of the Forest and the Plain • Edith Brown Kirkwood
... and indicated the many changes in bones, muscles, blood-vessels, nerves, composing the fore-part of the body, which would be required to make an increment of size in such horns advantageous. Here let me take another instance—that of the giraffe: an instance which I take partly because, in the sixth edition of the Origin of Species, issued in 1872, Mr. Darwin has referred to this animal when effectually disposing of certain arguments urged against his ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... of following your meteoric career in the papers! As I nibble at my toast of a morning I prop the New York Herald against the water giraffe and read, spilling my coffee down my neck: 'The life of the party was Right Tackle Thayer. Seizing the elongated sphere and tucking it under his strong left arm, Thayer dashed into the embattled line of the helpless ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... had the callow and awkward ways of a young giraffe, but, though only a three-year-old, he was sedate as an old maid and had the dignity of a churchwarden. His behaviour was an example to ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... is to be defended, it may be shown that those witticisms, aimed at him, about the giraffe getting its long neck by continually stretching it, or the whale getting its tail by holding its hind legs too close in swimming, do not apply to Darwinism, but to the exploded theory ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... trifle sarcastically, "that the more some people get the more they want. Your wishes seem to be on the Jack's Bean-stalk scale. They grow to reach the sky in a single night. Suppose you did have those things, you wouldn't be satisfied. It would be a zebra and a giraffe and a ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... a camelopardalis or Giraffe, (Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1211,) the tallest, the most gentle, and the most useless of the large quadrupeds. This singular animal, a native only of the interior parts of Africa, has not been seen in Europe since the revival of letters; and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... varieties and species; . . . but the view here developed renders such an hypothesis quite unnecessary. . . . The powerful retractile talons of the falcon and cat tribes have not been produced or increased by the volition of those animals; . . . neither did the giraffe acquire its long neck by desiring to reach the foliage of the more lofty shrubs, and constantly stretching its neck for this purpose, but because any varieties which occurred among its antitypes ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... the Lord High Islander rode a giraffe, and Philip longed to ride another. But Lucy said she would rather ride what she was ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... of enormous size, and some were by far the largest of all four-footed animals, exceeded in bulk only by the modern whales. In contrast to the carnivorous dinosaurs these are quadrupedal, with very small head, blunt teeth, long giraffe-like neck, elephantine body and limbs, long massive tail prolonged at the tip into a whip-lash as in the lizards. Like the elephant they have five short toes on each foot, probably buried in life in a large soft pad, but the inner digits bear large claws, blunt ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... Naples to a new alliance by a diplomatic visit that proved his skill in foreign negotiations. The gifts that came to him from strange lands were presented, in reality, to the master of the Florentine "republic." Egypt sent a lion and a giraffe, which were welcomed as wonders of the East even by those who did not appreciate the fact that they showed a desire to trade. It was easy soon to find new markets for the rich burghers whose class was in complete ascendancy over ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... The beautiful Giraffe, found only in South Africa, is like the camel in some respects, and the deer in others. That long neck which it arches so gracefully when you offer it a bun, enables it in its forest-home to feed upon the leaves of trees; so you see it is for ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... its goodness is found in serving that whole with which it is connected. That is a good oar which suits well the hands of the rower, the row-lock of the boat, and the resisting water. The white fur of the polar bear, the tawny hide of the lion, the camel's hump, giraffe's neck, and the light feet of the antelope, are all alike good because they adapt these creatures to their special conditions of existence and thus favor their survival. Nor is there a different standard for moral ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... accompanied the exploring squadron up to the temple quay where the ships were to moor. Then the Thebans feasted their eyes on the wonderful treasures that had come from Punt, wondering at the natives, the incense, the ivory, and, above all, at a giraffe which had been brought home. How the poor creature was stowed away on the little Egyptian ship it is hard to see; but there he was, with his spots and his long neck, the most wonderful creature that the good folks ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... This tall Giraffe, Measures ten feet and a half, And I wonder if his neck Of rubber is made. Out of the sun He thinks he has run But only his ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... anybody on foot. Harry, when I heard those bullets whistling about me I felt as if I could outrun a horse, or a giraffe, or an antelope, or anything on earth! And thunder, Harry, I ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and beasts and fishes, and indeed of all the animated world around us; how marvellously are these names adapted often to bring out the most striking and characteristic features of the objects to which they are given. Thus when the Romans became acquainted with the stately giraffe, long concealed from them in the interior deserts of Africa, (which we learn from Pliny they first did in the shows exhibited by Julius Caesar,) it was happily imagined to designate a creature combining, ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... Olson. "Would you look at the giraffe comin' up out o' the bottom of the say?" We looked in the direction he pointed and saw a long, glossy neck surmounted by a small head rising above the surface of the river. Presently the back of the creature was exposed, ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in height, he has little difficulty in dashing to the ground and overcoming the lofty and apparently powerful giraffe, whose head towers above the trees of the forest, and whose skin is nearly an inch in thickness. The lion is the constant attendant of the vast herds of buffaloes which frequent the interminable forests of the interior; and a full-grown one, so long as his teeth are unbroken, generally ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... fantastic forms, but with the advent of Le Notre the good taste which he propagated so widely promptly rejected these grotesques, which, for a fact, were an importation from Flanders, like the gloriettes. Not by the remotest suggestion could a clipped yew in the form of a peacock or a giraffe be called French. Le Notre eliminated the menagerie and the aviary, but kept certain geometrical forms, particularly with respect to hedges, where niches were frequently trimmed out for the placing of statues, columns surmounted with golden ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... the cages first. I do not complain of your natural wish to begin with the giraffe, because it has such an absurdly long neck and may possibly mistake Pamela's straw-hat for a bunch of hay and try to eat it, and because you will be able to see the hippopotamus on the way. As a matter ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... in New Zealand. It is the largest bird known, with long legs, a long neck, and short wings, useless for flight. One specimen that has been found is upward of thirteen feet in height. There is no reason why some should not have been much taller. More compares its height to that of a giraffe. The Maoris call this bird the Moa, and their legends and traditions are full of mention of it. When they first came to the island, six or seven hundred years ago, they found these vast birds everywhere, and hunted them ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... giant from the New World, had already flung her on canvas, with a brace of sisters. She outstands there, a virgin poplar-tall; hair like ravelled flax and coiffed in the fashion of the period; neck like a giraffe's; lips shaped for kissing rather than smiling; eyes like a giraffe's again; breasts like a boy's, and something of a dressed-up boy in the total aspect of her. She has arms a trifle long even for such height as hers; fingers very long, too, ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... of the country abounds with game. On one occasion a herd of antelopes crossed the path as tamely as if they had been sheep, and tracks of giraffe and larger game were frequently seen. Guinea-fowl were so plentiful that one of the white men at Mpwapwa told us that he did not trouble to fire at them unless he could ensure killing two or three at ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various |
