238 A BOOK-LOVER'S HOLIDAYS 



spoken of as kin to the African lion, a decidedly 

 smaller beast. It is possible that its real kin- 

 ship lies with the tiger. The Manchurian form 

 of the tiger is an enormous beast, and a careful 

 comparison of the skulls and skeletons may show 

 that it equals in size the huge western American 

 cat of Pleistocene times. I have already spoken 

 of the fact that in many cases it is almost im- 

 possible to distinguish the lion and tiger apart 

 by the bones alone; and it may be that the 

 exact affinities of these recently extinct species 

 with living forms cannot be definitely deter- 

 mined. But during historic and prehistoric 

 times the lion has been a beast of western Eurasia 

 and of Africa. The tiger, on the contrary, is and 

 has been a beast of eastern Asia, and apparently 

 has been spreading westward and perhaps south- 

 ward — that it was not as ancient an inhabi- 

 tant of jungle-covered southern India as the 

 elephant and leopard seems probable from the 

 fact that it is not found in Ceylon, which island 

 in all likelihood preserves most of the southern 

 Indian fauna that existed prior to its separation 

 from the mainland. Moreover, the finest form 

 of tiger exists in cold northeastern Asia. In 

 Pleistocene times this portion of Asia was con- 

 nected by a broad land bridge with western 

 America, where the mighty American cat then 



