268 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



longer, and usually of a redder colour than the pale 

 yellow or silvery-grey hue of the wild animal. I 

 could pick out the skin of a menagerie lion from 

 amongst a hundred wild ones. Climate and regular 

 feeding must, I think, have a good deal to do with 

 the luxuriant growth of mane almost invariably to be 

 observed in lions in confinement. If these causes are 

 not sufficient to account for the great difference which 

 undoubtedly exists between the ordinary wild lion of 

 Africa and his caged relative, I do not know what 

 other suggestion to offer. Nothing can be more 

 disappointing to the youthful sportsman, iresh from 

 England, and accustomed to the full flowing manes of 

 the lions in the gardens of the Zoological Society, or 

 the representations of the wild animal to be seen in 

 works on natural history or picture books, than to 

 shoot him in his native haunts, and find him almost 

 destitute of mane, for, after all, what is a lion without 

 a mane but the shadow of the noble beast one has 

 mentally pictured to oneself ? As regards the size of 

 the South African lion, the following are the lengths 

 of the pegged-out skins of six tull-grown males shot 

 by myself, and carefully measured with a tape-line : — 

 viz. lo feet 3 inches, 10 feet 6 inches, 10 feet 9 inches, 

 10 feet 10 inches, 9 feet 7 inches, and 11 teet i inch. 

 These are the lengths of the skins after having been 

 pegged out and stretched to a certain extent. How- 

 ever, after having flayed it, I carefully measured the 

 naked carcase of the largest lion. From the top 

 of the front teeth to the end of the tail it measured 

 9 feet 7 inches, laying the tape along the curves of the 

 body, and as all the gristle and meat of the nose had 

 been cut away with the skin, and at least an inch 

 must have been lost with the tuft at the end of the 

 tail, I think it would have measured all but 10 feet 



