Ernest Catropa, age 12, of Bridgeport, Conn.., for his question:
What is a cameleopard?
We see this handsome animal at the zoo. However, he is not to be found under the name cameleopard or cameleopardalis. He also can be found on the sun baked brush lands of the African volt. There he lives in the wild state with herds of his relatives. Hut even here he does not go under the name of cameleopard.
The gentle creature is the tallest animal on earth. He also rates among the most good looking and graceful animals though the first time you see him you are not likely to notice his beauty. Mr. Skyscraper is so different fry other mammals that you find it hard. To believe that he is a real animal. The people of Rome felt the same amazement when they saw him for the first time in the year 46 B.C.
They named him the cameleopardalis, thinking that his mother was a camel and his father a leopard. For a long time no one believed he was an animal in his own right. When you consider his amazing appearance, this is not surprising. A tall man can stand upright between his long front legs. His towering neck may be more than six feet long, lifting his gentle head to a height of 18 or 19 feet above the ground.
His loose, movable lips work with his long tongue to gather foliage from the bushes and acacia trees of his native Africa. His big, dark eyes are very beautiful, and his slender head is crowned with small, bumpy horns covered with skin and hair. He has a pair of these knobs on his forehead and perhaps a third one between them. He may have a second pair, making five in all, between his pointed ears.
The Roman armies found ham in North Africa, home of the camel. Like the camel, he moves with a graceful pacing motion two right legs then two left legs.
Like the Camel, he avoids muddy ground and can go for a long time without a drink. Also like the camel, he is a cud. chewing vegetarian. But his colors are the pale buffs and velvety browns of the leopard. He may wear dark spots or blotches on a buff background or a network of white lines on a background of dark, reddish brown.
Julius Caesar sent this amazing fellow to be displayed in Rome. There, in the year 46 B.C.., he was labeled the cameleopardal we, of course, call him the giraffe.
In South Africa, he is called the camel though he is not a camel. The Arabs of North Africa call him the zarafa, which means both graceful and swift. Our word giraffe comes from this Arab name, which seems most suitable. Mr. Giraffe can speed at 30 miles an hour for miles and miles with graceful ease.