64 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. 



a single bite in the head. In each case the upper 

 canine teeth had been driven through the top of the 

 skull or the back of the neck just behind the ears. 

 I once came on a young elephant only a few minutes 

 after it had been killed by a lion. The only wounds 

 I could find were deep tooth-marks In the throat. 



Lions kill and eat every kind of wild animal in 

 Africa with the exception of the Pachydermata — 

 though they occasionally catch and kill a young 

 elephant or rhinoceros that has been separated from 

 its mother — but as long as buffaloes and zebras are 

 plentiful in the countries they inhabit, they will 

 kill far more of these than of any other animal. 

 Ouaggas and Burchell's zebras probably formed 

 their chief food on the plains of the Cape Colony, 

 the Orange River Colony, and the Transvaal 

 before those countries were settled by Europeans ; 

 whilst farther north, where great numbers of 

 buffaloes frequented the neighbourhood of every 

 river, the lions lived almost entirely on these 

 animals, following the herds in all their wanderings, 

 just as in North America the prairie wolves were 

 always in attendance on the bisons. Giraffes are 

 sometimes killed by lions, but according to my 

 experience only very rarely ; no doubt because 

 they must be very awkward animals to pull down, 

 and also for the reason that, generally speaking, 

 they inhabit dry, waterless stretches of country, 

 throughout which game is usually only sparsely 

 distributed and into which lions do not penetrate. 



Although I have excluded the Pachydermata 

 from the list of animals on which lions prey, there 

 nevertheless seems to be good evidence that these 

 carnivora do sometimes attack and kill good-sized 

 cow elephants. 



I well remember an old Boer hunter, Michael 

 Engelbreght, telling me of an unsuccessful attack 

 made by lions on a cow elephant within a short 



