6 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIX. 



going any great distance. The old sepoy, when I saw him, not long 

 after the encounter, had quite recovered from his wounds. 



Another adventure with a strav lion took place in a vSindhi village, 

 not very far away from the same neighbourhood. The story was 

 told me by an eye-witness. In this case, a cultivator, early one 

 morning while on his way to his fields, came across a lion devouring 

 a cow it had just killed. He immediately hurried back and gave the 

 information in the village when practically the whole of the village 

 population turned out armed with torn toms, empty tins, lathis, etc., 

 for the purpose of driving the unwelcome visitor away. On seeing 

 the crowd approaching, the lion left the " kill " and retired into some 

 bushes, whence it declined to stir, in spite of all the efforts of the 

 villagers to make it do so. Some of the men bolder than the rest 

 managed to reach and climb into some trees overlooking the bushes 

 into which the lion had retreated and tried to make it move b y pelt- 

 ing it with stones, but all to no purpose, a few ominous growls was all 

 they elicited in response to their fusillade. At this stage in the pro- 

 ceedings, a "Raburi" appeared upon the scene, a cattle-herd by caste 

 and profession, and a member of one of the handsomest, pluckiest and 

 finest class, of the many to be found in the Province. On learning 

 from the villagers, the cause of all the uproar, he, instead of follow- 

 ing their example of joining in the fun from the same position in a 

 tree, laughed at them for their cowardice, and declared he would 

 single-handed very soon put the lion to flight. To put his boast into 

 effect, he at once proceeded to walk towards the spot where the lion 

 was said to be crouching, shouting at the top of his voice and 

 brandishing his lathi as he did so, and doubtless quite convinced in 

 his own mind, that the lion wou.'d turn tail and bolt on seeing him 

 steadily approaching, and probably it might have done this, under 

 any other circumstances, but it is not surprising that, after all the 

 baiting that it had undergone, at the hands of the villagers, its tem- 

 per at the time was not of the sweetest, and that instead of at once 

 decamping, it charged and laid low the unfortunate *'Rabari" with a 

 gaping wound in his side which rapidly proved fatal. 



A short account of the Gir Lions, in whose haunts I have lived for 

 weeks together and with whose habits, I have therefore perhaps had 

 a better opportunity of becoming acquainted than most members of 

 our Society, may not be out oi place in our journal, especially as I 



