GIRAFFES
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I was much interested in the letter of Dr. Frank Collie in your correspondence columns of October 2nd. I had antici- pated some comment on the statement I made in my article on Giraffes in your issue of September 4th, that these animals can and do attain a speed of thirty miles an hour. It is refreshing to find that Dr. Collie has so recently obtained good evidence from a friend in East Africa using a Ford car that my statement embodied truth and not fiction.
But as a matter of fact I had convinced myself from my own experience in hunting these animals on horseback in the Kalahari Desert in days gone by, and from the evidence adduced by reliable observers using motors, and .obtaining photographs of giraffes in recent years, that the estimate of thirty miles an hour as the speed of these tall mammals, when pressed, is not an excessive one. The marvel is that- with the extraordinary gait of a giraffe when hard pressed it can maintain so high a speed. In its slower paces this animal strides along at an easy walk in marvellous and very deceptive fashion. When pushed, however, it proceeds by a series of bounding leaps,-.the hind legs. being thrown out wide of-the forelegs as the creature lands at each leap. At. the same time the long neck sways up and down, while the thick, wiry, black tail tuft is whirled round and round at such a speed that you
can hear the " swish " of it fifty yards away. In the forest country to which they fly these bizarre yet most beautiful creatures dodge trees in amazing fashion, lowering their stately heads to escape branches and tacking round thorny acacias and thick bush in a way that always astonishes the pursuer. Giraffes are great stayers, and unless you push your horse to its utmost speed and press your quarry beyond its pace in the first two or three miles of chase they will almost surely get away from you.
I am speaking, of course, of hunting in South Africa in the old days before game licences and protection came into force. Giraffes in that country are now pretty carefully protected,—
Previous page
