162 BULLETIN 99^ UNITED STATES NATION.iL MUSEUM. 



The following notes on some interesting habits of lions, as observed 

 by the Smithsonian African Expedition, are taken from the chapter 

 on this animal in Roosevelt and Heller's Life-Histories of Aaican 

 Game Animals.^ 



The lion is common throughout all the portions of East Africa which we visited 

 except on the high, wet plateaux and in the dense forests; we did not come across it 

 in Uganda; but it was found on the Lado and less commonly along the White Nile 

 to the Sobat. There are geographical varieties; but the presence or absence of the 

 mane, and its color — black, tawuy, or mixed — represent individual and not specific 

 or subspecific variation; black and yellow-maned lions come from the same litter, 

 and the fullness of the mane may vary greatly among males from the same litter, 

 although it is apt to be heaviest where the climate is cold. 



The litters are certainly born at various times. Judging by the cubs we saw, one 

 litter must have been produced by a lioness on the Kapiti Plains in January, and 

 another on the upper Guaso Nyiro of the north about the first of June; and in each 

 there were in the immediate neighborhood of the litters of comparatively young 

 cubs — three or four months old — other young lions probably three or four months 

 older. This must meah that in East Africa litters may be born at almost any season 

 of the year. The lying-in place of the lioness is sometimes in a cave, sometimes in 

 thick brush or long grass. Normally the cubs remain where they were born for a few 

 weeks, the mother leaving them to hunt, and returning sometimes after an absence 

 of forty-eight hours; but they make no noise even when left thus long. If game is 

 abundant they may keep to the original lair for several months, but if game is scarce, 

 or for other reasons, the lioness may shift her quarters when her young ones are not 

 much bigger than tom-cats, and the family may then be seen travelling long distances 

 until another suitable place for a lair is reached. \^Tien the cubs are three months 

 or so old, they habitually travel with the mother; then, instead of eating her fill at a 

 kill and afterward returning to the cubs, the latter run up to the kill and feed at it 

 with their mother. We found flesh and hair in the stomachs of two cubs; for they 

 begin to eat flesh long before they stop suckling. While still very young they try, in 

 clumsy fashion, to kill birds and small animals. By the time they are four or five 

 months old they sometimes endeavor to assist the mother when she has pulled down 

 some game which is not formidable, but has not killed it outright before they come up; 

 and soon afterward they begin to try regularly to help her in killing, and they speedily 

 begin to help her in hunting and to attempt to hunt for themselves. Evidently in 

 their first attempts they claw and bite their prey everywhere; for we found carcasses 

 of zebra and hartebeest thus killed by family parties which were scarred all over. 



Lions are sometimes monogamous and sometimes polygamous, and there is much 

 variety in the way they conduct their family life. It is a common thing for an old 

 male to be foimd alone, and it is no less common for two adult males to be found in 

 company, living and hunting together; the two famous man-eaters of Tsavo, which 

 for a time put a complete stop to the building of the Uganda Railroad, were in the 

 latter category. A lion and a lioness are often found together, and in such case a 

 strong attachment may be shown between them, and the union be apparently perma- 

 nent; at least this would seem to be the case from the fact that such pairs -will often 

 remain together just before the birth of the cubs and while the latter are very little, 

 the lion Ijdng up during the daj^ in the neighborhood of his mate and her litter. But 

 it is a frequent thing to find a party of lions consisting of one old male, of two or three 

 or four females, and of the cubs of some of the latter; and these parties are well known 

 to the Ukamba and 'Ndorobo hunters, and their association is permanent, so that 



1 Life-Hist. Afr. Game Animals, vol. 1, pp. 164-167, 169. 1914. 



