IV SHARPNESS OF LION'S CLAWS 69 



They will walk through any opening in an enclosure, 

 but in the absence of such a means of ingress, I 

 have always found that they got inside by creeping 

 through the fence, even when it was low and very 

 thick and thorny. I have known a lion to walk 

 round and round a stockaded cattle kraal, and at 

 last force its way in by pressing two poles apart 

 and squeezing through the opening thus made. 

 Should lions, however, be disturbed and suddenly 

 fired at whilst feeding on a bullock which they have 

 killed inside an enclosure, they will almost always 

 jump over the fence in their hurry to escape. 



I have never seen any evidence of a lion's killing 

 its prey by striking it a heavy blow with one of its 

 paws, and I believe that it always endeavours to kill 

 by biting, and only uses its claws for holding or 

 pulling an animal to its mouth. I have seen both 

 a lion and a lioness bayed by dogs repeatedly throw 

 out their fore-paws like lightning when one of these 

 latter came near them ; but the movement was not in 

 the nature of a blow, but rather an attempt to hook 

 one of the dogs in their claws and draw it to them. 

 Lions, I think, must often lose their prey through 

 the very sharpness of their claws, which cut like 

 knives through the skin and flesh of a heavy animal 

 in motion. I have known several instances of a lion 

 overtaking a horse that had only had a short start. 

 In such a case a lion will not land with a flying 

 leap right on to a horse's back. It gallops close 

 along the ground until it is almost under the horse's 

 tail, and then, rearing itself up on its hind -legs, 

 seizes it on either flank, endeavouring to hold it 

 with the protruded claws of its great fore -paws. 

 But almost invariably in such a case it fails to stop 

 a galloping horse, its claws simply cutting great 

 gashes through skin and flesh. I once saw a 

 lion chasing four koodoos in broad daylight, though 

 on a cold cloudy morning. It was galloping after 



