i8o BRITISH MAMMALS 



Abyssinia, and Somaliland. South of this line the lion is still 

 found all over Southern Africa except the dense forests of the 

 West Coast and of the Congo Basin, and all the settled regions 

 of British South Africa. But within the Historic period the lion 

 was found throughout North Africa from Morocco to Egypt, in 

 parts of Arabia, Southern Persia, Palestine, and the whole of 

 Western, Southern, and South-eastern India, in Asia Minor, the 

 Balkan Peninsula, Greece, and Rumania. In Prehistoric times 

 the lion inhabited much of Austria, Southern Germany (it 

 attained a very large size in Bavaria), and Eastern France ; while 

 doing the Palaeolithic age the lion extended its range over 

 France, Spain, and Britain. In our own country the lion 

 seems to have swarmed during the Pleistocene period, even 

 contemporaneously with the Ice age. Its remains have been 

 obtained from nearly every English county as far north as 

 Yorkshire and the north of Wales. It does not seem to have 

 reached Scotland, and no trace of its remains are found in Ireland. 

 Its range, in fact, in Britain was coincident with that of so many 

 other mammals now characteristic of Asia and Africa which 

 entered Britain from the south-east during the Pleistocene period, 

 and are found in greatest abundance in the eastern counties. 

 The lion was certainly contemporaneous with Palaeolithic man, 

 and may have lingered on down to the coming of the superior 

 Neolithic races. 



Felis pardus. The Leopard 



The Leopard, whose present range includes nearly all Tropical 

 and Sub-tropical Asia, and the whole of Africa (except the Sahara 

 Desert and Egypt), inhabited Asia Minor and possibly the Balkan 

 Peninsula during the Historic period. Further back than that 

 it was a native of Italy, Spain, France, and Southern England. In 

 our own land it was far scarcer (judging by the paucity of its 

 remains) than the lion, but undoubted bones and teeth of 

 leopards have been found in the caves of Dorsetshire, Somerset, 

 and Devon. 



