THE LION 225 



largest available public museum where they can be preserved 

 and accessible to zoologists for comparison. 



Adult lions vary surprisingly little in size, as evidenced 

 by the slight variation in skull dimensions. The extreme 

 skull lengths show a difference of only one inch in a series 

 of fifteen old adult males in the National Museum from 

 British East Africa. The size variation in the lioness is 

 greater, the extremes being ij/i inches apart in a series of 

 twenty old skulls from the same general locality. The 

 largest male skulls in the National Museum are quite iden- 

 tical in greatest length. The very largest is one killed by 

 Paul J. Rainey, which has a length of 14H inches, the next 

 in size being one shot by Colonel Roosevelt, measuring only 

 iV inch less in length. An average skull length for an 

 adult male is 14.}^ inches. The smallest old male has a 

 skull length of 13^ inches. The skulls of adult lionesses 

 range in greatest length from I2f^ inches to 11 inches. It 

 is doubtful if skulls from East Africa ever equal 15 inches 

 in length, notwithstanding Ward records several exceeding 

 this dimension. The largest known skull in length is one 

 now in the Berlin Museum, which represents a South African 

 specimen which lived formerly in the Transvaal Zoological 

 Gardens near Delagoa Bay. The length of this skull, as 

 measured by Heller, is i6tV inches. Ward records this 

 skull also as the longest, but overstates its length, giving 

 it as 17 inches. The greatest or zygomatic width of this 

 skull is loU inches. A skull in the National Museum, 

 known as the Richardson lion, formerly living in the Cen- 

 tral Park Zoo of New York City, exceeds that width by yV 

 of an inch and is the record specimen in this dimension. 

 Much stress has been laid upon the skull dimensions owing 

 to their importance in determining the actual relative size 

 of specimens. Sportsmen often attach great weight to flesh 

 measurements, consisting usually of the total length from 

 nose to tip of tail and the height from the pad of the fore- 

 foot to the withers. Such measurements, however, are sub- 

 ject to much personal variation, no two sportsmen taking the 

 measurements quite alike. Measurements taken of bone 

 lengths, such as the skull, show the relative size of speci- 

 mens much more accurately. The largest adult male lion 

 shot by Colonel Roosevelt was a specimen from the Loita 



