Donna White, age 12, of Coventry, Rhode Island, for her question:

Can a giraffe make a noise?

He makes a crunching noise when he chews his favorite acacia twigs and his hoofs rumble like thunder when he gallops over the hard ground. But nobody heard the giraffe utter a sound and for a long time he was thought to be voiceless. This challenged observers to investigate. The job required endless patience, for the graceful creature is not a gabby character. Far from it. Some observers suspected that he goes through life without saying anything and others began to think that after all, he is mute.

Certainly the giraffe keeps conversation down to a minimum    and so does his family. However, Mrs. Giraffe has been heard to call her straying calf with a gentle mooing sound. Junior tends to have more to say for himself. When he is hungry or when things go wrong he is likely to "bl a a r" like a baby bull. The larynx or voice box of the giraffe seems to be somewhat undeveloped and perhaps some of these animals are mute. Since the young have more to say, it may be that the adults tend to lose their voices.