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This webpage reproduces a section of Star Names Their Lore and Meaning by Richard Hinckley Allen as reprinted in the Dover edition, 1963 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know!

 p106  Camelopardalis or Camelopardus, the Giraffe,

the French Girafe and Italian Giraffa, is long, faint, and straggling like its namesake. It stretches from the pole-star to Perseus, Auriga, and the Lynx, the hind quarters within the Milky Way.

It was formed by Bartschius, who published it, in outline only, in 1614, and wrote that it represented to him the Camel that brought Rebecca to Isaac. Was it from this that Proctor attempted to change its title to Camelus ? — an alteration that seems to have been adopted only by Mr. J. Ellard Gore in his translation, in 1894, of Flammarion's Astronomie Populaire. Weigel used it with Auriga to form his heraldic figure, the French Lilies.

The Chinese located seven asterisms within its boundaries: Hwa Kae, the State Umbrella, extending beyond Camelopardalis; Luh Kea, a term in  p107 anatomy; Shang Ching, the Higher Minister; Shang Wei, the Higher Guard; Shaou Wei, the Minor Guard; Sze Foo, the Four Official Supporters of the Throne; and Yin Tih, Unostentatious Virtue.

Argelander enumerates 84 naked-eye stars, and Heis 138; these culminating in the middle of January.

The 4th‑magnitude lucida is 20° north of Capella, below the left hock of the animal; and two others of the same brilliancy, 1° apart, are in front of the fore quarters.

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