CAPT. W. SMEE ON THE MANELESS LION OF GUZERAT. 173 
cular, is far from being sufficiently detailed to allow of the satisfactory identification of 
his animal with that of Guzerat. Should subsequent inquiries prove that he was cor- 
rectly informed as to the locality from which the maneless Lions seen by him at Bagdad 
were obtained, and prove also their identity with those of Guzerat, a more extensive 
geographical range will be established for this curious race than I am at present dis- 
posed to regard as probable. 
One other notice of a maneless Lion remains to be added: it is the latest that has 
been published, but sufficient time having elapsed since its announcement to have al- 
lowed of full details having been given to the world (details which as regards so inter- 
esting a subject would scarcely have been deferred), it is by no means impossible that 
some error may have occurred respecting it. I refer to the announcement in Mr. Grif- 
fith’s English Edition of Cuvier’s ‘Régne Animal’!, that a maneless and brownish 
coloured species of Felis, larger than a Lion, had been forwarded from Nubia to the 
Frankfort Museum. 
Having alluded, in the commencement of this communication, to the opinion that a 
maneless Lion was known to the ancients, it might be expected that I should here 
bring forward and discuss the several passages which have been looked upon as sup- 
porting this view. Where, however, the critics are at fault, it would be presumptuous 
in me to attempt to decide. I own that I do not find in the passages usually referred 
to any evidence at all satisfactory as regards the existence of Lions destitute of mane ; 
and I am even far from willing to admit that the crisped hairs noticed by Aristotle? as 
distinguishing one race of Lions from another in which the hairs were either dense or 
straight, must of necessity be considered as those of the mane rather than of any other 
part of the body. The language of Oppian is equally obscure, and even the expressions 
used by him are warmly contested by the critics*. Another Greek writer, Agatharchides‘ 
the peripatetic, speaks of the Arabian, and especially the Babylonish Lions, in terms 
that recall Olivier’s description of those of Bagdad, but still with no definite application 
to the want of a mane. Pliny® alone, so far as I am aware, mentions the absence of 
mane as a distinctive mark of one race of Lions; but to this race he attributes a 
monstrous generation, and he was probably altogether misled with respect to it. 
Pliny, however, in many of his fables has had his followers ; and it is by no means 
improbable that the maneless feline beast which occurs in the older armorial bearings 
may have been intended to represent a Lion leoparded. This term is still in use among 
the heralds of France, but is employed by them with reference only to the position of 
the head ; if the full face is shown, the animal, whether maned or maneless, is in their 
1 Vol. ii. p. 428. 2 Arist. Hist. Anim., Ed. Scal. Tolos. 1619, p. 1154. 
3 Oppian., Ed. Schneid., pp. 234 & 365.—Ed. Belin., pp. 108 & 318, 319. 
* Agatharch, Hist., Oxon. 1597, p. 41. 5 Hist. Nat., lib. 8. cap. 16. 
242 
