CHAPTER IV. 



LIONS. 



IT has been suggested to me that a few additional 

 remarks on some of the characteristics of lions, and 

 of the hunting of them, might be acceptable to 

 brother sportsmen, and it occurs to me that I can 

 hardly do better than commence by giving some 

 account of the facts and inferences with which a 

 long intimacy with the leonine family has stored 

 my memory. 



It has, I have noticed, become the fashion of 

 many modern sportsmen, who have had the good 

 fortune to kill a few lions with impunity, to shower 

 abusive and contemptuous epithets on the head 

 of this very prominent member of the upper circles 

 of animal society ; just as in former times so many 

 absurd stories of his magnanimity and courage were 

 current and credited. The fact remains that he 

 is pre-eminently a very crafty beast ; when circum- 



