290 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



year. . . . General Marguerite relates, that during his eleven years the 

 Beni-Mahrez, a tribe not numbering more than 100 tents, lost on average 

 annually, 3 horses, 25 cattle, and 75 sheep from the depredations of lions 

 and panthers .... Before the French came, the Turks had encouraged the 

 Arabs to destroy them by freeing the two great lion-hunting tribes, the 

 Ouled Meloul and Ouled Cessi, from all taxes and paying liberally for their 

 skins. The French gave only 50 francs for a skin. 



Between 1873 and 1883 the process of extinction is measured in Govern- 

 ment returns. The numbers killed for the whole of Algeria were, in the last 

 six years of this period, 1878, 28; 1879, 22; 1880, 16; 1881, 6; 1882, 4; 1883, 3; 

 (1884, 1) ; and for the decade- 

 Province of Algeria 29 



" " Constantine 173 



" " Oran 



202 



There are a few lions still left in the Province de Constantine, in the thick 

 forests between Soukarras and La Calle. 



According to Johnston (in Bryden, 1899, p. 564), "Lions still 

 linger here and there in South-East and South-West Algeria." 



On the other hand, Lavauden, an eminent authority on the North 

 African fauna, fixes (1932, p. 6) the date of the Lion's disappearance 

 in Algeria at about 1891, when the last one was killed in the region 

 of Souk-Ahras. 



Morocco. To judge by the literature of several centuries ago, 

 Morocco was then a veritable country of Lions. At the middle of 

 the seventeenth century they still abounded on the Mediterranean 

 coast. Toward the end of the eighteenth century the range extended 

 to Cape Nun, Ifni. By the middle of the nineteenth century the Lion 

 had retreated from the entire Mediterranean littoral. According to 

 old native hunters, about 1880 not a Lion remained north of the 

 low Bu Regreg and Taza Pass. Some years later many forests of the 

 Middle Atlas served as a refuge for bandits, and this fact, together 

 with the civil wars of those times, contributed to the disappearance 

 of the Lions. Even in 1901 Lions were said to be frequent visitors 

 to the forest of Budaa, near Azru. According to the ex-Sultan Muley 

 Hafid, there remained in Morocco about 1911 only a few Lions, 

 which lived in the forests of the Zaian and the Beni Mguild. Ap- 

 parently they survived at least to 1922 in the Middle Atlas, and 

 it is probable that they inhabited the Grand Atlas likewise till a 

 comparatively recent date. They inhabited especially the wooded 

 mountains. 



The Lion figures largely in the folklore of Morocco. 



Its rapid disappearance from this country constitutes a very 

 curious problem. Unlike the Cape Province and Algiers, Morocco 

 remained wild and uncivilized up to a quarter of a century ago. 

 Its inhabitants are far from being a hunting people, and few Euro- 



