216 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



" The first lion caught in one of the hyena-traps showed 

 the great holding power exerted by a single toe. Four traps 

 were set about the carcass of a newly shot hartebeest. 

 During the night the carcass was visited by two male lions, 

 one of which was caught in one of the traps by the middle 

 toe of his right hind leg. The jaws of the trap took a firm 

 hold of the toe behind the great toe pad. To this trap was 

 attached a drag, consisting of the limb of a thorny acacia 

 eight feet in length and much branched. The lion, after the 

 first struggles with the trap, dragged it a few yards to a 

 termite hill. About this mound he rushed many times, wear- 

 ing in the earth a path a foot wide. Finding this manoeuvre 

 of no avail in freeing him of his encumbrance, he proceeded 

 some fifty yards further with the drag and climbed up the 

 slanting trunk of a small tree which was bent over at a very 

 oblique angle. At a point five feet above the ground the 

 tree forked and through these forks he bounded to the 

 ground. The trap, however, caught in the forks and held 

 his hind foot. Here he hung, his forefeet and nose touching 

 the ground, and the hind part of his body suspended from 

 the tree. His plight was now irretrievable. In the morning 

 I found him in this position with his companion some three 

 hundred yards from him, still feeding upon the hartebeest 

 carcass. The latter bolted upon seeing me and left his 

 companion to his fate. The trapped lion, upon perceiving 

 me, began to growl and thrash about in a last effort to free 

 himself in the presence of this new danger. I prudently 

 shot him at a distance of one hundred yards. Upon exam- 

 ining him I was dumfounded to find that he was caught by 

 a single toe. He was a full-grown male, but maneless, and 

 in excellent condition with a heavy layer of fat under his 



