THE LION 163 



having skulls with the occipital-sphenoidal sutures anchy- 

 losed, associated with maneless skins. The so-called mane- 

 less lions are really immature specimens of adult size which 

 have every appearance of being fully adult and are on that 

 account considered so by sportsmen. Adult size of skull 

 or body is not a reliable character of maturity; imma- 

 ture animals not only equal but occasionally exceed the 

 mature ones. The average observations on the coloration 

 of the mane are similarly misleading. Owing to the occur- 

 rence of black-maned lions occasionally in all the districts 

 where lions occur, it is assumed that the color of the mane 

 is of no racial value. We must not lose sight of the fact 

 that in geographical races we are dealing with average 

 characters and not absolutely distinctive ones, such as are 

 possessed by species. The Cape and the North African 

 lions are usually black-maned, while the East African is 

 decidedly a tawny or yellow-maned race. Black-maned lions 

 are occasionally seen in East Africa, but they occur in the 

 proportion of about one to fifty, and are of such rare occur- 

 rence that we are quite justified in calling the East African 

 a yellow-maned race. 



It is a singular fact that the lion, though so widely sep- 

 arated by color, mane, and habits from the tiger, is almost 

 indistinguishable from it in skull characters. The skulls of 

 the two great cats are quite identical in size, shape, and 

 dentition, although readily distinguishable in these char- 

 acters from those of other members of the Felidcs. The 

 skull of the lion may be distinguished from that of the tiger 

 usually by the character of the nasal bones, which do not 

 project posteriorly beyond the end of the maxillary bones, 

 and by the flatter or less convex outline to the under- 

 surface of the lower jaw-bone. But these diff^erences are 

 slight and at most only average affairs. Frequently paleon- 

 tologists refer fossil skulls to the lion, a proceeding in which 

 they are seldom justified. Fossil species based on skulls and 

 obviously with unknown color characters cannot be assigned 

 definitely to either the lion or the tiger. Large cats related 

 to the lion or tiger were formerly much more widely dis- 

 tributed than at present. They are known as far back as 

 the Pliocene in North America, Europe, and Asia. The 

 lion at the present time occurs from western India westward 



