ORDER CARNIVORA: CARNIVORES 293 



and on the Jordan. The ancient writers (Xenophon, Aristotle, 

 Strabo, Pliny, etc.) speak of lion hunts in Syria and also in Arabia. 

 (Meyer, 1903, p. 71.) 



"To-day, the nearest [to Palestine] wild habitats of the lion are 

 the jungles of the Upper Euphrates and several Arabian oases. But 

 even in those places it must be on the verge of extinction." (Boden- 

 heimer, 1935, p. 114.) 



Iraq (Mesopotamia) and Persia. In the early part of the last 

 century Lions were noted fairly commonly along the Euphrates and 

 the Tigris. The explorer Layard hunted them with the Bakhtiyari 

 chiefs in Arabistan, whose sheep and oxen suffered from the Lions' 

 depredations. By the middle of the century Layard reported the 

 species as then found rarely on the Tigris as far north as Mosul, 

 but frequently below Bagdad. He adds: "On the Euphrates it has 

 been seen, I believe, almost as high as Bir .... On the [Jebel?] 

 Sinjar and on the banks of the Khabour [in the northeast of the 

 present Syria], they are frequently caught by Arabs. They abound 

 in Khuzistan [western Persia]." (Kinnear, 1920, pp. 33-35.) 



By 1891, according to Sir Alfred Pease (Book of the Lion), the 

 "lion is no longer found in Asia Minor, but exists in Mesopotamia 

 and Arabistan, between Poelis, west of Aleppo, and Deyr [in the 

 present Syria] , and in the Euphrates valley ... ; it is also found in 

 the lower part of the Karun river but is nowhere plentiful." (Kin- 

 near, 1920, p. 36.) 



Blanford writes (1876, p. 29) : "The lion at the present day is 

 found in Mesopotamia, on the west flanks of the Zagros mountains 

 east of the Tigris valley, and in the wooded ranges south and south- 

 east of Shiraz. It nowhere exists on the table land of Persia." To 

 this 0. St. John adds (in Blanford, 1876, pp. 30-31) : "Lions, which 

 are very numerous in the reedy swamps bordering the Tigris and 

 Euphrates, are found also in the plains of Susiana, the modern 

 Khuzistan, and extend into the mountain country south of Shiraz 

 as far east as longitude 53." Acorns of an oak (Quercus aegilopi- 

 folia) "feed the wild pigs whose- presence tempts the lion into the 

 mountains of Pars. . . . The little valley of Dashtiarjan, thirty- 

 five miles west of Shiraz, is notorious for the number of lions found 

 in its vicinity. . . . Dashtiarjan is ... a perfect paradise for 

 swine, ... so that the lions have plenty to eat .... Every year 

 some four or five adult lions are killed in Dashtiarjan or the neigh- 

 bourhood, and a few cubs are brought in to Shiraz for sale." 



Edward Thompson (London Times, August 19, 1932?) gives the 

 following reports for Mesopotamia: a Lioness and cubs seen by an 

 Indian trooper near Ahwaz in 1917; a Lion cub brought through an 

 Arab village near Sanniyat in 1916; and one shot in the Wadi 



