506 CARNIVORA 



attracted by the immense herds of swine which feed on the acorns. 

 The Lion nowhere exists in the table-land of Persia, nor is it found 

 in Baluchistan. In India, where it is verging on extinction, it 

 appears now to be confined to parts of Kattywar and Eajputana, 

 though within the present century its range extended through the 

 north-west part of India, from Bahawalpur and Sind to at 

 least the Jumna (about Delhi), southward as far as Khandesh, and 

 in Central India through the Saugor and Narbada territories, 

 Bundelkund, and as far east as Palamau. It was extirpated in 

 Harriana about 1824. One was killed at Rhyli, in the Dumaoh 

 district, Saugor and Narbada territories, so late as in the cold 

 season of 1847-48 ; and one was shot in 1810 near Kot-Deji, Sind. 1 



The great variations in external characters which different Lions 

 present, especially in the colour and the amount of mane, has given 

 rise to the idea that there are several species, or at all events dis- 

 tinct varieties peculiar to different localities. It was at one time 

 supposed, on the authority of Captain Walter Smee, 2 that the Lion 

 of Gujerat differed essentially from that of Africa in the absence of 

 a mane, but subsequent evidence has not supported this view, which 

 was probably founded upon young specimens having been mistaken 

 for adults. Lions from that district as well as from Babylonia, 

 which have lived in the gardens of the London Zoological Society, 

 have had as fully developed manes as any other of the species. 

 Mr. F. C. Selous 3 has shown that in South Africa the so-called 

 Black-maned Lion and others with yellow scanty manes are found, 

 not only in the same locality, but even among individuals of the 

 same parentage. 



The Lion belongs to a well-defined group, containing the largest 

 members of the genus, and differing from the others in the well- 

 marked character that the anterior cornu of the Iryoid arch is but 

 little ossified, so that this arch is connected with the cranium by a 

 long ligament, instead of by a continuous chain of bones, and by 

 the less important one that the pupil of the eye, when contracted, 

 is a circular hole, instead of a vertical slit as in the cat. The Lion 

 agrees with the Tiger and the Leopard in these respects, but differs 

 from them in its uniform style of colouring, and from all the other 

 Felidce in the arrangement of its hairy covering ; thus the hair of the 

 top of the head, chin, and neck, as far back as the shoulder, is not 

 only very much longer, but also differently disposed from the hair 

 elsewhere, being erect or directed forwards, and so constituting the 

 characteristic ornament called the mane. There is also a tuft of 

 elongated hairs at the end of the tail, one upon each elbow, and 

 in most lions a copious fringe along the middle line of the under 



] See Blanford, Fauna of British India, "Mammalia," p. 57 (1883). 



'- Transactions of the Zoological Society, vol. i. p. 165 (1835). 



3 A Hunters Wanderings in Africa, 1881, p. 258. 



