"In the lion, perhaps, nothing else gives the human and, therefore, intellectual, and imperial aspect so much as this tuft of hair on the lower jaw. It has no bony prominence behind it—as in man—but it looks like a chin. The ancient Egyptians and Assyrians knew this well, and their sculptors marked this angle in a lion's face with great precision and effect.

The tiger, and, in a less degree, the leopard and jaguar, &c., gain much of dignity from this tuft on the lower jaw. But to none of these is given what the lion has, viz., an apparently lofty cranium. I say apparently because this, like his chin, is purely fictitious, the angles of the bone differing little from those of the tiger. But his fictitious forehead and chin are real enough to give him a very noble appearance. In the form and expression of his mouth, also, there exist several quasi human characteristics.

"My own observations and measurements have made me doubt whether the lion does stand 'slightly higher than the tiger.' I should be inclined to place their average heights as the same, viz., about 3ft. at the shoulder. No doubt individuals of both species sometimes attain a far higher stature.

“I think, as Mr. Nettleship, that the tiger is the stronger. The average tiger has always seemed to me to be larger in the forearm than the average lion (a very important feature); but here one must be cautious on account of the mane, which, no doubt, makes the lion's arm look smaller than it is. To prove this, you have only to compare a lion with a lioness. The latter generally appears to be more fully developed, just as a man in a jersey always looks stronger than one in a loose coat. Nevertheless, I have little doubt that the muscular volume of a tiger is rather greater than that of a lion, and I should judge that the quality of its fibre is very superior. It is more beautifully hung together than the lion, and is far more flexible and lithe, and seems to have much greater spring in it.

"The tiger is the cat of cats. The lion, though a cat, is stiffer, and its shoulder action, when compared to that of the tiger, is more like that of a dog.

"In comparing the relative size and development of the lion and tiger, a lioness and tigress should be used. In this case the apparent difference will not be considerable. The real difference is, I think, greater.

"BRITON RIVIÈRE."

It is, of course, no easy matter to obtain trustworthy statistics of size, because the skin is more often measured than the dead beast in the flesh-which alone will give a correct result; and it is still more difficult to obtain the weight, for the simple

Character of the Lion.

5

reason that a weighing machine is not found in the ordinary equipment of the hunter of dangerous game. This question of size has been the occasion of much heartburning, and one is apt to incur the indignation of the jealous sportsman by venturing on any discussion of it. With all humility, then, it may be stated that the dimensions of a well-grown lion may be 10ft. in length over all, 3ft. 8in. in height at the shoulder, and the weight about 500lb. Some accounts, which indicate much larger animals, do not, on examination, prove to be satisfactory.

Like all his tribe, the lion will not waste his strength by downright hunting. He crawls up to his prey and secures it by a sudden impetuous rush, in which for the moment he puts out his whole energy. In the event of failure he rarely endeavours to follow up the quarry, but waits for another opportunity. Livingstone, although he was nearly killed by a lion, speaks with undisguised contempt of "the king of beasts," as the following extracts from his travels show:

"If he is encountered in the daytime he turns slowly round, after first gazing a second or two, walks as slowly away, looking over his shoulder, quickens his step to a trot till he thinks himself out of sight, and then bounds off like a greyhound. As a rule there is not the smallest danger of a lion which is unmolested attacking man in the light. There is less danger of being devoured by them in Africa than of being run over when walking in the streets of London. Nothing that I ever heard of the lion would lead me to attribute to it either the ferocious or noble character ascribed to it elsewhere. He chiefly preys upon defenceless creatures; and frequently, when a buffalo calf is caught by him, the cow rushes to the rescue, and a toss from her often kills him. On the plain south of Sebituane's Ford, a herd of these animals kept a number of lions from their young by the males turning their heads to the enemy. A toss, indeed, from a bull would put an end to the strongest lion that ever breathed." His Majesty, according to the same writer, is fond of calling others to his assistance when

attacking his prey: "It is questionable if a single beast ever engages a full-grown buffalo. Messrs. Oswald and Verdon once saw three lions combine to pull a buffalo down, and they could not accomplish it without a struggle, though he was mortally wounded by a 2oz. ball." The fact that the natives frequently kill the lion with their spears would suggest that he is not nearly so formidable an antagonist as the tiger. I have seen a very large skin in which there were the marks of only two spear wounds, one over the shoulder, and the other through the ribs. The Bushmen are adepts at stalking the lion. When he has been dining sumptuously they hunt stealthily on his trail until they find him sleeping off the effects of his gorge. A poisoned arrow is then discharged from a distance of a few feet, while one of the hunters throws his cloak over the animal's head, and a number of spears are hurled at him during the moment of his surprise and confusion. No tiger, it may be averred, would allow himself to be killed in this primitive fashion by two or three savages armed with such weapons.

The point of the lion's attack seems to be the flank or throat, according to Livingstone's observations, and he does not make use of his weight by springing on the withers or quarters, as we almost always see him represented in pictures. It is difficult to bring oneself to believe the stories told of his immense strength. Writers who assure us that he will "fell an ox or an antelope with a single blow of his paw, break its neck with one crunch of his cruel teeth, and bound off with it to his lair as easily as if he were only carrying a rabbit,” must surely be in a romancing mood; and when we are further informed that a lion has been known to leap a wall 9ft. high with a calf in his mouth, we wonder how he managed to dispose of its dangling legs!

Livingstone's account of the mauling he underwent from a wounded lion shows that the beast may on occasion become a dangerous enemy. That simple-minded missionary and great explorer seems to have done his lion shooting with weapons whose proper place should have been in the hands of ploughboys

An Attack on the Lions.

7

scaring off crows from an English cornfield. They are continually referred to in a matter-of-fact way as refusing to go off, an event which happened to the guns of the whole expedition during a night attack by a troop of lions on the draught oxen. None of the celebrated lion killers, though armed with the best weapons of large calibre, have evinced more courage and coolness than the man who marched across Africa with a Bible under his arm, and never took human life, as the following account of an attack on several lions amply proves: "In going round the end of the hill I saw a lion sitting on a piece of rock about thirty yards off, with a little bush in front of him. I took a good aim at him through the bush, and fired both barrels into it. The men called out, He is shot! he is shot!' Others cried, 'He has been shot by another man, too—let us go to him.' I saw the lion's tail erected in anger, and, turning to the people, said, 'Stop a little till I load again.' When in the act of ramming down the bullets I heard a shout, and looking half-round, saw the lion in the act of springing on me. He caught me by the shoulder, and we both came to the ground together. Growling horribly, he shook me as a terrier dog does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first grip of the cat. It caused a sort of dreaminess in which there was no sense of pain nor feeling of terror, though I was conscious of all that was happening. It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe; they see the operation, but do not feel the knife. This placidity is probably produced in all animals killed by the carnivora; and, if so, is a merciful provision of the Creator for lessening the pain of death. As he had one paw on the back of my head, I turned round to relieve myself of the weight, and saw his eyes directed to Mebalwe, who was aiming at him from a distance of twelve or fifteen yards. His gun, which was a flint one, missed fire in both barrels. The animal immediately left me to attack him, and bit his thigh. Another man, whose life I had saved after he had been tossed by a buffalo, attempted

to spear the lion, upon which he turned from Mebalwe and seized this fresh foe by the shoulder. At that moment the bullets the beast had received took effect, and he fell down dead. The whole was the work of a few moments, and must have been his paroxysm of dying rage. In order to take the charm from him, the Bakatla on the following day made a huge bonfire over the carcase, which was declared to be the largest ever seen. Besides scrunching the bone into splinters, eleven of his teeth had penetrated the upper part of my arm." The consequence of this, perhaps, foolhardy encounter with some half dozen lions by men armed with ridiculously untrustworthy weapons, was, so far as Livingstone himself was concerned, "only the inconvenience of a false joint" in his limb.

The varieties of the lion, black-maned and tawny, and those without any mane at all, are probably due to local conditions, the difference in any case being insufficient for establishing a specific distinction. Livingstone found lions, both very old and also in the prime of life, totally destitute of the mane. Besides the difference of colour some individuals have pretty distinct brown spots, principally on the belly and inside the thighs, which are quite conspicuous on all the cubs.

The ravages of lions among the flocks of the natives in Africa seem to be almost as great as the depredations of the tiger in India, although they are certainly much less given to man eating, and that only when old and incapable of hunting. It has been said, on good authority, that a lion in Algeria may be considered to destroy about £200 worth of camels, horses, and oxen, in the course of a year, and if he lives to the age of thirty years the brute will have cost the community no less than £6,000! Pitfalls and ambuscades, therefore, are constructed with considerable skill to put an end to his ravages, and miserable old guns, little better than gaspipes with a touch hole drilled in them, are brought into requisition, with, however, not much effect upon the marauders.

Strictly carnivorous as they are, these great cats appear to