WATCHING THE SKINNING OF AN EAST AFRICAN LION 



There is certainly no more splendid sight than the great-maned tawny lion galloping over the plain or facing 

 its enemy for a mighty charge. And I think there can be no grander sound in nature than the full-lunged 

 roaring of a band of lions. I consider the lion, however, the most dangerous of African big game, and 

 for all the wilderness animals he is the "terror by night." Once in every five or six days he can dis- 

 pose of a hartebeest or zebra. I happened upon several hundred lion kills. The dozen lions our 

 expedition collected would ha^e eaten seven or eight hundred head of the large harmless game in 

 the year following. But lions continually take to man-eating also; in fact British East Africa 

 still reminds one of the primitive world in which warfare with wild beasts was one of the 

 chief features of ordinary existence. The cub lions (the same litter giving forth yellow 

 or black-maned adults) remain in the spot where born for three or four weeks, then 

 travel with the lioness, eating their fill at the kills. By the time they are six months 

 old they begin to help; we foind kills of zebra l)itten all over by young lions. The 

 lion is without doubt concealingly colored. Sometimes I could scarcely see the 

 crouching form in the brown grass, to take aim. But his color cannot have 

 been developed by natural selection for this use, because his success in 

 hunting comes entirely without tlic aid of the "protective color" 



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