82 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. 



never get fine manes, and the hotter the climate, 

 the poorer on the average the manes will be. The 

 fact that the high, cold plateaus are always open 

 grasslands free from thorn-bush, whilst the lower 

 parts of the country are usually covered with 

 scrubby bush and thorny thickets, has led many 

 people to think that lions have poor manes in bush- 

 covered countries because the thorns tear out the 

 hair ; but I think that this is quite a mistaken idea, 

 for in the western part of Matabeleland, in the 

 neighbourhood of the Ramokwebani and Tati 

 rivers, where the winter nights are very cold, 

 although the whole country is covered with forest, 

 much of it dense thorn-bush, the lions used some- 

 times to grow very fine long manes. Personally, 

 therefore, I am convinced that climate is the main 

 factor in the production of a lion's mane, and 

 possibly very high feeding may help to produce 

 certain exceptionally fine animals. As the high 

 plateaus of Southern and Eastern Africa have, 

 before the advent of Europeans, always teemed with 

 great multitudes of zebras and antelopes, and in 

 some cases buffaloes as well, the lions of the high 

 and cold plateaus have most certainly always been 

 well fed. The lions living in the Pungwe river 

 district too must, before the advent of Europeans, 

 have been exceptionally well fed. 



It has always seemed to me that in Africa and 

 India, where, although the nights may be cold, the 

 sun is always hot, a heavy mane must be more or 

 less of a nuisance and encumbrance to a lion ; and 

 I believe that such a wonderful growth of hair 

 must be a reversion to an ancestral adornment first 

 evolved in a cold climate. 



The fossil remains of the so-called cave lion 

 {Felis spelaea), which have been discovered in great 

 abundance in the cave deposits of Pleistocene times 

 in Western Europe, are said by Professor Boyd 



