412 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



tough and dangerous beast, and where zebra and harte- 

 beest abound lions naturally follow the easier quarry. On 

 Heatley's farm a family of lions made their day lair in the 

 big papyrus belt which also harbored the buffalo herd. 

 Usually neither interfered with the other, the lion finding 

 ample hunting among the swarming buck of the surround- 

 ing plains; yet one night two lions killed a buffalo heifer 

 just outside the papyrus. A single lion, no matter how 

 large, will rarely, unless very hungry, tackle an unwounded 

 buffalo bull; when one is killed by lions it is usually by a 

 party of them, and the assailants do not always escape 

 scathless, it being no uncommon thing for one of them to be 

 killed or wounded in such a fight. A big lion will kill a 

 buffalo cow or young bull without much difficulty. This 

 is because the lion makes his assault by surprise, and at the 

 outset gets such an effective hold that the doomed buffalo 

 has no chance to exert its enormous strength. A cow with 

 a young calf is so on the alert that she is apt to detect the 

 approach of her foe; and if she does so she herself makes 

 the assault, without any hesitation, and may kill or drive 

 off the lion. 



The buffalo is rightly deemed one of the most dangerous 

 beasts of the chase to be found in the world. In unfre- 

 quented places, or where it has grown accustomed to dom- 

 ineer over defenceless natives, it will attack unprovoked. 

 Near Kenia, while we were there, a cow buffalo regularly ran 

 amuck through the villages, killing and crippling a number of 

 persons before the young men slew her with spears. Shortly 

 after we left Africa, Messrs. McMillan and Selous made a 

 trip down the Northern Guaso Nyiro, and one of their porters 

 was charged and mortally hurt by a buffalo. On Heatley's 



