IV LOVE AND JEALOUSY 77 



abundant, there are many authentic records of over 

 twenty lions having been seen together. In his 

 article on *' The Lion," pubHshed in the Badminton 

 Library Series, Mr. F. J. Jackson, C.B., has noted 

 the fact that on August 7, 1890, he and Dr. 

 Mackinnon came across a troop of twenty- three 

 Hons near Machakos in East Africa. This troop 

 consisted of three male lions with splendid dark 

 manes, five or six lionesses, and the rest cubs. I 

 have come to the conclusion that such large 

 assemblages of lions as this, in which there are 

 several full-grown males, are, in all probability, only 

 of a very temporary nature, the chance meeting and 

 fraternisation of several families which, as a rule, 

 live and hunt apart ; since I believe that the passions 

 of love and jealousy would not allow two or more 

 males to live permanently in the company of 

 lionesses without fighting. When a troop of lions 

 is met with, in which, besides a full-grown male and 

 some females and small cubs, there are also one or 

 two good-sized young males with small manes, I 

 believe that they are the offspring of the old male 

 and one or other of the adult females, and that they 

 have lived and hunted with the troop since cubhood. 

 Such young males are probably not driven away 

 to hunt by themselves until they commence to 

 aspire to the affections of one of the females of the 

 party. In 1879 I encountered two pairs of male 

 lions hunting in company in the Mababi country to 

 the north of Lake N'gami. I shot the first pair, 

 and should certainly have killed both the others 

 had I only had a rifle and a few cartridges with me 

 when I first saw them, as they were right out on an 

 open plain from which the grass had been burnt, 

 far away from the nearest bush, and I was riding 

 the best hunting horse I ever possessed. The two 

 lions which I shot were large and heavy, apparently 

 just in their prime, and the other pair also appeared 



