The Lion 95 



times has a definite object in view, but more frequently 

 goes forth to take advantage of anything that may turn up. 

 If the former is the case, his course is directed, as that of 

 a man would be in like circumstances, by a previous ac- 

 quaintance with the haunts and habits of the game he is 

 after. He does not ambush a disused path to a dried-up 

 spring, or look for a quagga in a buffalo wallow, or attempt 

 to stalk black antelopes in the same way that he would 

 approach cattle belonging to some Hottentot kraal. 



In Africa, which is his true home, a lion "is never 

 known to chase prey." Having sighted it, ascertained its 

 species, surveyed the ground, found out the direction of 

 the wind, — preliminaries essential to any subsequent at- 

 tempts to get near, — he begins to practise a set of manoeu- 

 vres adapted to present conditions, and these he has 

 learned in the literal meaning of that term. Faculty is 

 transmitted. Knowledge is always acquired. 



Having closed successfully and seized his prey, it is 

 destroyed in a variety of ways. As a matter of fact 

 immediate death does not invariably come to the relief 

 of its sufferings, even in the case of those smaller creat- 

 ures on which the lion preys. He does not wait, as 

 Buffon supposed, until insensibility ensues before tear- 

 ing them to pieces. Nor is it true, as Dr. Livingstone 

 imagined, that Providence assuages the agonies of all 

 animals thus caught, by bestowing upon the FelidcE a 

 propensity to shake their victims, and so produce a 

 state of insensibility. How can a lion shake an ox or 

 an eland, a horse, giraffe, buffalo, or young rhinoceros .■* 

 Andersson tells us that he mistook the groans of a zebra 



