3 68 THE CARNIVORES 



far different terms. Such differences of impression must, it is obvious, be largely 

 due to personal disposition. 



Perhaps the lowest estimation of the lion's roar is that of Livingstone. He 

 writes that "it is calculated to inspire fear when heard in a pitchy dark night 

 amidst the tremendous peals of an African thunderstorm, and the vivid flashes of 

 lightning which leave on the eye the impression of stone-blindness, while the rain 

 pouring down extinguishes the fire, and there is neither the protection of a tree nor 

 a chance that your gun will go off. But when anyone is snug in a house or a 

 wagon, the roar of a lion inspires no awe. A European cannot distinguish between 

 the note of a lion and that of an ostrich. In general the voice of the former seems 

 to come deeper from the chest ; but to this day I can only pronounce with certainty 

 from which of the two it proceeds, by knowing that the ostrich roars by day and 

 the lion by night. The natives assert that they can detect a difference at the begin- 

 ning of the sound. ' ' 



A recent writer on Land and Water, who is fully impressed with the grandeur 

 of the lion's roar, is by no means disposed to admit the justness of its comparison to 

 the voice of the ostrich. He observes that when a lion is ' ' roaring loudly in con- 

 cert with others at a short distance off, the sound is grand and awe-inspiring in the 

 extreme ; in fact, I have never heard anything of a similar nature that can compare 

 with it, for it is no exaggeration to say that the ground actually trembles with the 

 volume of sound. I say this unhesitatingly, for all that many people would have 

 us believe to the contrary, maintaining that there is nothing in it, and endeavoring 

 to compare it to the ' booming ' of the cock ostrich. At a great distance, and there- 

 fore, when heard indistinctly, the low, sullen roaring of a single lion has certainly 

 much resemblance to the sound emitted by the ostrich during the pairing season ; 

 but persuade either the lion or the ostrich to come nearer, and one might then as 

 well try to compare the rumbling of cart wheels over a wooden bridge with the in- 

 cessant roll of thunder among mountains. But a lion makes other sounds far 

 more disconcerting because usually only heard at close quarters than that to 

 which it gives vent when, in company with others, it has killed a head of game, or 

 is retiring to its lair, full fed. There is the constant low growling of the lion 

 crouching in cover, uncertain whether to fight or to fly, as, with flattened ears and 

 nervously twitching tail, he studies the situation, hoping by his attitude to warn off 

 the disturber of his solitude. There is the angry snarl of the lion disturbed at his 

 meals, when his appetite is not yet satisfied, and when one has come upon him so 

 suddenly as to give him no time to clear off ; and, worse than all, the short, cough- 

 ing grunts which often accompany a charge, and which startle the intruder in his 

 domains as he bounds away. All these sounds are by no means musical, and, 

 whether heard by day or by night, are well calculated to try the nerves." Similar 

 testimony as to the impressiveness of the lion's roar is given by Gordon Cumming, 

 who describes it as consisting at certain times of five or six repetitions of a low, deep 

 moaning, ending off with a faint and scarcely audible sigh, while at others it takes 

 the form of loud, deep-toned, solemn roars, quickly repeated, and increasing in in- 

 tensity till the third or fourth , after which it gradually dies away in a succession of 

 low muffled growlings, like the roll of distant thunder. Then, again, the veteran 



