TH.E LION— KING OF BEASTS 



by lions. He had often had cattle killed by the big felines, 

 but never yet had seen a single lion, although he had tried 

 a good many times to get a shot at one. Finally he suc- 

 ceeded with the unsportsmanlike method of poisoning some 

 of them with strychnine. 



Some people have killed lions by, for instance, shooting 

 a zebra or larger antelope, the body of which is then left 

 as it falls without being touched in any way by human 

 hands. They then wait on a moonlight night from a 

 nearby tree, or a temporary shelter, made by thorn bush, 

 until the lion comes along, or else they return to camp and 

 revisit the place of the kill before sunrise the following 

 morning, before the lions generally leave their prey. Many 

 more hunters, myself included, have again and again tried 

 this in vain, only to find the carcass undisturbed, or else 

 eaten by hyenas or jackals. 



It is a well-known fact that the lion is just as fond of 

 eating an already dead animal — even in a state of putre- 

 faction — as it is of eating its own, fresh " kill." The old 

 theory, although universally believed, that the lion only 

 eats the meat of animals it kills itself, has by unmistakable 

 evidence been proven to be entirely false. Another strange 

 fact is that where lions abound in great numbers, large 

 herds of game have existed for ages and still even in- 

 creased, while the lion itself, although very seldom killed 

 by another beast, never multiplies so much as to threaten 

 the game with destruction, even in localities where the 

 '* king of beasts " has never been hunted by white men. 



