THE LION 175 



paw on its face or muzzle, while the other holds it by the 

 shoulder and the great fangs tear at the neck, feeling for the 

 bone, he is very apt to win. In such a case the buffalo is so 

 hampered that it cannot exert its full strength and, with its 

 head twisted to one side, there is a fair chance of its break- 

 ing its neck in one of its headlong plunges; and unless it 

 can shake off the lion sooner or later the latter's teeth meet 

 through the spinal marrow and the fight is over. When 

 several lions attack jointly they apparently interfere with 

 one another, or else embolden one another so much that the 

 quarry is less scientifically seized, and is usually clawed and 

 bitten all over. Probably lions occasionally strike heavy 

 blows with their massive, powerful forearms, but this is 

 certainly not common ; ordinarily the claws are merely used 

 to hold the animal, and the killing is done with the teeth. 

 Thick brush, and, to an even greater degree, long grass, 

 favor a lion's attack, enabling him to make his rush so close 

 up that the prey has little chance of escape; but on a bare 

 plain the game may get just the second's time necessary to 

 escape, and if it is a big, powerful, even though unwarlike, 

 animal, like an eland, it may wrench itself free from a bad 

 hold where its head or neck has not been seized, and escape. 

 The great majority of the kills that we saw were zebras 

 and hartebeests; but we also came on the carcasses of eland, 

 wildebeest, oryx, waterbuck, wart-hog, kob, impalla, and 

 gazelle, which had fallen victims. Usually it was impos- 

 sible to tell just how the killing had been done; twice we 

 found zebras with the big fang marks on the back of the 

 neck; we found a hartebeest which had been seized by the 

 throat; several animals showed claw marks on their faces; 

 a young waterbuck cow had been bitten through the head 



