474 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1891. 



its leg and given it a slight scratch. The lion had evidently tried 

 to throw it over with its paw and had failed, probably because the 

 donkey was tied by the leg to a stone buried in the ground, and the 

 upward movement of the lion's paw would be in the line of resistance. 

 Within a few minutes of the donkey being attacked, it was calmly 

 eating, which showed its nerves were not affected. The donkey 

 lived all right afterwards. Lions generally seize their prey by 

 the throat, but by no means universally so. I examined the following 

 kills : — three camels all seized by the throat ; two goats b}>- the back 

 of the neck ; one donkey by the lower part of neck at the junction of 

 the body ; one donkey seized with claws on the face and belly but not 

 bitten (this animal survived); one cow by the throat; and the donkey 

 with the above-mentioned claw-wound between the forelegs. Most 

 of the above were natural kills, as one is unable to tie out much, 

 owing to the hysenas. The way a lion kills a camel, according to the 

 Somalia, is that he leaps on its quarters, the camel turns back his 

 head to protest against this proceeding and thus brings his throat 

 within reach of the lion's jaw, who takes advantage of the oppor- 

 tunity to close upon it, and certainly from the claw marks on 

 the kills of the old camels that I saw, it appeared that such 

 was the case. There were no marks on any of these kills of the 

 lion having delivered any blow with the paw. One that got hold of 

 me also did not strike with the paw. Sir Samuel Baker, however, 

 gives a number of instances of their striking with the paw. I came 

 across a curious instance of the limited intelligence of a lion. I 

 found the carcase of a camel at which three lions had been eatino-. 

 one at the rump, one at the stomach, and one at the forequarter and 

 face. Now the one that had eaten the rump had buried the raw sur- 

 face left after his meal by kicking up a heap of sand over it, so that it 

 should be concealed from the vultures, but the other places where the 

 others had been eating were left exposed, his instinct had not told him 

 it was useless to cover up one place without covering up the others. 

 I know these were three lions, as I had been tracking them off and on 

 and losing their tracks in the hills for a fortnight. I got two of them 

 over this camel. Once when tracking them I saw all three in the 

 early morning pass the sky line of the ridge of hills 300 yards above 

 me, but I lost the tracks. I think lions generally kill in the day- 



