MY ACQUAINTANCE WITH LIONS 61 
black boy—bitten his head clear off, so the local story 
goes. However, no one knows why the lion killed 
the boy in this case for, of the three possible witnesses, 
two were asleep and the third dead. 
It is possible, of course, that the lion deliberately 
attacked the Joma without provocation, but it seems 
unlikely, for lions are driven to these extremities 
chiefly by hunger; and in this case the lion could have 
satisfied his hunger by the bait that had been laid 
out for him. The usual man-eater is an old lion, who 
in the season of scattered game finds it impossible 
with his failing strength and speed to catch animals 
for food. To keep from starving he attacks the na- 
tive flocks and herds, or the natives themselves. The 
most famous man-eaters, the lions of Tsavo, which 
spread such terror as almost to stop construction on 
a part of the Uganda railway, were, indeed, an excep- 
tion to the rule. Colonel Patterson, whose classic 
account of them is one of the great animal stories of 
the world, accounted for these young, vigorous 
animals becoming man-eaters because some of the 
coolie workers who died were put in the bush unburied 
and the lions had acquired a taste for human flesh 
by eating these bodies. After this taste was acquired 
these lions hunted men just as the ordinary lion 
hunted zebras. They made a regular business of it. 
It was their daily fare, and they took a terrible toll 
before they were finally killed. But these lions were 
killing for food just as if they were killing zebras. 
Even when forced to fight, the lion is not vindictive. 
If an elephant gets a man he is likely to trample on 
