r : 



rn.ii'.v:. 



FKLID.E. 



M 



from iU being associated with the popular belief that the Lion lathes 

 his tides with his tail to (stimulate himself into rage. There was 



Mima), and of Mr. Darwin ( Zoology of the Beagle') ny be consulted 

 with advantage. 



1 >r. Horafirld and Mr. Vigors (' Zool. Jour.,' vol. i v. p. 380) remark exhibited at one of the meetings a claw obtained from the tip of the 

 that they are not of M. Temminck's opinion, that the determination tail of a young Barbary Lion presented to the Society's menagerie by 

 of species in such groups as these rests upon any examination, how- Sir Thomas Reade, then his majesty's consul at Tripoli. It was 



1 detected on the living animal by Mr. Bennett, and pointed out to the 

 keeper, in whose hands it came off whilst he was examining it. The 

 specimen having been submitted to Mr. Woods for description, that 



ever" acute, of preset-red' specimens in cabinets, or in any research, 

 however extensive, into the stores of furriers. Such examination, 

 they think, leads to conjecture ; probable and plausible conjecture, it 

 may be true, but still conjecture, and not facts. They add that we 

 are in this way as likely to fall into the error of confounding true 



gentleman commenced by referring to the ancient writers quote.l l,y 

 Blumenbach. Homer ('II.,' xx.), Lucan ('Pharsal.,' i. 208), Pliny 



as into that of creating nominal ones, and they express their (' Hint.,' viii.), among others, who had described the Lion (erroneously) 



opinion that the truth can be satisfactorily attained only by diligent 

 researches in the native country of these animals, or by accurate 

 observations on their changes and differences as to sex, age, and season, 

 when in a living state and in confinement. 



M. Temminck, in his ' Tableau Methodique ' (1827), states that then 

 there were known 30 distinct species of Cats, and 7 or 8 other doubtful 

 indications. 



I. THE Lioxs. 



Lion is the EnglUh name for the form in which carnivorous 

 development is generally considered to be the most perfect : AeW 

 of the Greeks (Araivo, Lioness) ; Leo of the Komans (Lea and Leama, 

 Lioness) Leone of the Italians (Leonessa, Lioness); Leon of the 

 Spanish ; Lion of the French (Lionne, Lioness ; Linceau, whelp) ; 

 Lowe of the Germans (Lowinn, Lioness). The male is, as a general 

 rule, ornamented with a mane ; the female has no such ornament. 



There are, it appears, distinguishing characteristics marking the 

 differences between the skulls of the Lion and Tiger. Professor Owen 

 explained these to a meeting of the Zoological Society of London 

 (1834), when several crania of these two species were exhibited. He 

 adverted to the dis- 

 tinctions pointed 

 out by Cuvier in 

 the ' Ossemens Fos- 

 siles,' and remarked 

 on the first of them ; 

 namely, the straight- 

 ness of the outline 

 hi the lion from the 

 midspaoeof the post- 

 orbital processes to 

 the end of the nasal 

 bones in one direc- 

 tion, and to the oc- 

 ciput in the other, 

 as not being in nil 

 esses available ; but 

 he regarded the 

 second distinction 

 the flattening of 

 the interorbital 

 space 'in the Lion 

 and its convexity 

 in the Tigect as 

 being more con- 

 stant and appre- 

 ciable. He pointed 

 out however a dis- 

 tinction which had 

 never, according to 

 his belief, been published, which is, he observed, well marked, 

 and which appears to be constant; for he found it to prevail 

 throughout the whole of the skulls of these animals whirh I..- 

 had examined, including ten of the Lion and upwards of twenty 

 of the Tiger. It consists in the prolongation backwards in the 

 cranium of the Lion, of the nasal processes of the maxillary bones 

 to the same transverse line which is attained by the coronal or 

 superior ends of the nasal bones ; in the Tiger the nasal processes 

 <>f the maxillary bones never extend nearer to the transvere 

 plane attained by the nasal bones than one-third of an inch, and 

 sometimes fall short of it by two-thirds, terminating also broadly in 

 a straight or angular outline, just as though ihe rounded and some- 

 what pointed ends which these processes have in the Lion had been 

 cut off. Professor Owen noticed also minor differences in the form 

 of the 'nasal aperture, which in the Tiger is disposed to narrow down- 

 wards and become somewhat triangular, while in the Lion its tendency 

 is towards a square shape ; in the deeper sinking in a longitudinal 

 depression of the coronal extremities of the nasal bones in the Tiger 

 than in the Lion ; in the bounding of this depression above in most 

 of the Tiger's crania by a small but distinct semilunar ridge, which 

 is not found in those of the Lion ; and in the larger comparative 

 n*e, chiefly in their transverse diameter of the infraorbit.il foramina 

 in the Lion. Professor Owen remarked that it was curious that these 



Skeleton of Lion. 



as lashing himself with his tail when angry, or to provoke himself to 

 rage. None of these writers however, he remarked, advert to any 

 peculiarity in the Lion's tail to which so extraordinary a function 

 might, however incorrectly, be attributed; but Didymiis Alexau- 

 drinus, a commentator on the ' Iliad,' cited by Blumeubaeli, having 

 found a black prickle-like horn among the hair of the tail, immediately 

 conjectured that he had ascertained the true cause of the stimulus 

 when the animal flourishes his tail in defiance of his enemies, 

 remarking that when punctured by this prickle the Lion becomes 

 more irritable from the pain which it occasions. Mr. Woods then 

 noticed the oblivion into which the subject fell for centuries, till 

 Blumenbach, who observes also that the later commentators, Heyne 

 for instance, had noticed the opinion above stated, revived it, Blumen- 

 bach having verified the accuracy of Didymus Alexandrinus as to the 

 fact, though he did not admit the commentator's int'< 

 Blumenbach described the prickle as small, dork-coloured, hard as 

 horn, placed in the very tip of the Lion's tail, surrounded at its base 

 by an annular fold of the skin, and adhering firmly to a singular follicle 

 of a glandular appearance. But Blumenbach remarked that these 

 parts were so minute, and the small horny apex so buried in the tuft 



of hair, that the use 

 attributed to it by 

 the ancient scholiast 

 can only be re- 

 garded as imagin- 

 ary. Again, accord- 

 ing to Mr. Woods, 

 the subject appears 

 to have slumbered 

 till 1829, when M. 

 JDeshayes announc- 

 ed (' Ann. des Sci. 

 Nat,' vol. vii.) that 

 he had found the 

 prickle both of a 

 lion and lioness 

 which died in the 

 French menagerie, 

 and described it as 

 alittl<> nail or horny 

 production, about 

 two lines in length, 

 presenting the form 

 of a small cone, a 

 little recurved upon 

 itself, and adhering 

 by its base only to 

 the skin and not to 

 the last caudal ver- 

 tebra, from which it 

 was separated by a space of two or three lines. From that 

 period Mr.. Woods suffered no opportunity to escape him of examin- 

 ing the tails of every lion, living or dead, to which he could gain 

 access; but in no instance hod he succeeded in finding the 

 prickle till the specimen which was then before the committee was 

 placed in his hands, within half an hour after its removal from 

 the living animal, and while yet soft at its base where it hod 

 been attached to the skin. Ho described it as formed of corneous 

 matter like an ordinary nail, and solid throughout the greater part of 

 its length towards the apex, where it is sharp ; and at the other 

 extremity as hollow, and a little expanded. Its shape was rather 

 singular, being nearly straight for one-third of its length, then .-! 

 constricted (forming a very obtuse angle at the point of constri. 

 and afterwards swelling out like the bulb of a bristle to its termi- 

 nation. It was laterally flattened throughout its entire length, which 

 did not amount to quite three-eighths of an inch. It was of a horn- 

 colour, but became darker, nearly to blackness, at the tip. Its 

 appearance, Mr. Woods observed, would lead to the belief that, it was 

 deeply inserted into the skin, with which however from the rea.; 

 with which it became detached, its connection must have been very 

 slight. It is to this slightness of adhesion that M. Deshaycn attributes 

 its usual absence in stuffed specimens ; and the same cause will 

 account for its absence in by far the greater number of living indi- 



foramina were double either on one or both sides in the only four i vidunls ; for, as Mr. Woods remarked, its presence or absence does 

 Us examined of lions which were known to be Asiatic, whilst in all ' not depend upon age, because the Paris lions in which it was found 

 asn the foramen was single on each side. I were of considerable size, while that belonging to tlm Sneirty v:i 



Another communication to the same society becomes interesting very small and young ; nor upon sex, for although wanting in the 



