78 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



and others run in alternate lines. Most people are 

 familiar with the sensation produced when the com- 

 mon cat licks the hand ; by the lion more marked 

 traces would be left. 



The fore-limbs exhibit a still more beautiful ar- 

 rangement for strength and seizure. " The muscle* 

 >f the fore-arm-of the lion," writes Sir Charles Bell, 

 ' bear a strong resemblance and shape to those of 

 the same part in man. The flexors, extensors, pro- 

 nators, and supinators, are, in the brute, exactly in 

 the same place, and bear all the relations which the 

 student of anatomy is taught to observe with so 

 much interest in the human arm *." Hence the 

 power to inflict a blow at the moment of their fatal 

 bound, which either kills or completely stuns their 

 victim. The stroke from a Bengal tiger has been 

 known to fracture a man's skull. The feet having 

 five toes on the fore extremity, and four only on the 

 hind, complete the work. They are armed with 

 most powerful, hooked, sharp, and hard claws, ad- 

 mirably fitted for tearing, and no less admirably 

 protected by a peculiar mechanism, from being 

 broken or blunted, or otherwise injured in the ordi- 

 nary motions or walking of their possessors. 



The accompanying figure illustrates this mecha- 



ism in the foot of the lion ; and we are indebted to 



Professor Traill for a description of the parts, ana 



the use of a clever sketch by Mosses, taken from a 



* Sir Charles Bell. The Hand, JBridgewater Treatises, 

 120. 



