93 



CHAPTER XII. 



CARMVOUA COIlfinUed existing feline species TIIEIR DISTRIBUTION IN BORNEO. 



Existing Species. — (Felis Leo) (Map 13.) The Lion, the chief of the existing Carnivora, is 

 now confined to Africa and the south-west of Asia, extending as far eastward as Guzerat. It is rare 

 in most of Asia, and in some parts of Africa, and has whoUy disappeared from many districts 

 where it was formerly a resident. Within the historic period it existed in Europe. Aristotle (no 

 doubt on the authority of Herodotus) states that the lions of Thessaly attacked the beasts of burden 

 attached to the army of Xerxes, and mentions the circumstance as occuiTing between the Achelous 

 and the Nestus. 



Within the present century, it was distributed over much of Central, West, and Xorth- 

 west India. It is now almost confined in that country to the peninsula of Guzerat. Blyth 

 says, that there is reason to believe that it formerly inhabited the plains of Upper India generally, 

 if not also the table-land of the peninsida. In the early part of the sixteenth century, Baber 

 mentions that it inhabited the Benares district. It was extirpated at Hurriana in 1824. A 

 female was kiUed at Rhyli, in the Diunaoh district, Sagur and Nerbudda territories, so late as 

 in the cold season of 1847-48, and about the same time a few still remained in the valley of the 

 Scinde river in Central India. The species would appear to be now exterminated in that district, 

 unless a remnant still maintains a lingering existence in certain particularly inaccessible haimts 

 in the neighbouring district of Bundelkund, which Mr. Blyth (in 1803) mentions that he had 

 received recent intelligence was the case.* It does not occur to the northward or eastward of the 

 north-west provinces of the Bengal Presidency. 



It is plentiful in some parts of Persia, and not rare in Asia Minor. 



In Africa it is almost entirely extirpated from the more populous parts of Egj^pt and tlie shores 

 of the Mediterranean. It is still in tolerable numbers on the Mount Atlas range, but does not 

 penetrate into the .Sahara, although a straggler from the Tunisian Mountains may occasionally be met 

 with on its northern boundary. It does not now occur in the Gaboon and Niger districts, and is 

 driven far back into the interior from the Cape of Good Hope ; but in the other parts of the Continent 

 of Africa it is more than sufficiently abundant. At one time or other it must have ranged into every 

 part of Africa ; for, as I am informed by Dr. Kirk, he knows of no nation or tribe which 

 has not a name for it. 



Slight differences exist in the appearance or characters of individuals from these various districts, 

 or at least some of them ; differences sufficient to have led naturalists to hold that there is more than 

 one species. Thus the manelcss Lion of Guzerat, and the Gambiau lion, have been described as 



* Blyth, "Catalogue of Slamtnalia in Museum of Asiatic Society," 186.'?, p. 54 and C5. 



