294 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



marshes a year later. He also mentions a report received by the 

 Bombay Natural History Society of the continued existence of Lions 

 in the Pusht-i-Kuh range of western Persia. 



"There are Persian Lions, and the last time a pair of them was 

 seen in the South of Persia by French and English Engineers (in 

 1928) .... The animals were carefully watched for several hours 

 and were seen by hundreds of people. ... I understand that the 

 Persian ruler takes keen interest in their preservation and they 

 are not allowed to be shot." (Hasan Abid Jafry, in Hit., August 

 17, 1933.) 



The Persian Lion is a thing of the past. Firearms, whose use 

 increased during the World War, were more dangerous to the Lion 

 in Persia than in Africa. In 1923 the last of its kind was killed 

 south of Shiraz. Yet the people still express belief in the existence 

 of Lions. In the swamp and reed areas of the Euphrates and the 

 Tigris I have been able to find no more trace of the Lion. The opera- 

 tions here during the World War paved the way for its extinction. 

 Skins of Persian Lions are still found in some mosques. (Becker, 

 1934, pp. 439-440.) 



The Lion may survive in the wilder mountains of Luristan and 

 Khuzistan in southwestern Persia (Bombay Natural History Society, 

 in litt., December, 1936) . 



"The Syrians frequently used the lion motif as a frieze decora- 

 tion, and at Persepolis, thirty miles northeast of Shiraz, where the 

 magnificent ruins of the palace of Darius the Great may still be 

 seen, the lion as a decorative architectural motif was constantly used. 

 In the embrasures of some of the great doors of Persepolis the winged 

 lions were magnificently carved." (Vernay, 1930, p. 82.) 



Afghanistan and Baluchistan. "There is no evidence to show 

 that the lion inhabited Afghanistan or Baluchistan within historic 

 times" (Kinnear, 1920, p. 37) . 



"I was told, while in Duzbad, the frontier town on the Baluch- 

 Persian border, that the lion existed in Afghanistan seventy-five 

 years ago. This is mere heresay, but it sounds quite reasonable." 

 (Vernay, 1930, pp. 82-83.) 



In 1935 Admiral Philip Dumas reported seeing a Lion at close 

 range near the Bolan Pass, south of Quetta in Baluchistan (Jour. 

 Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 381-382, 1935). 



India. "Within the present [19th] century, distributed over 

 much of Central, West, and North-west India; but now confined 

 in that country to the peninsula of Guzrat, unless a last remnant 

 still maintains a lingering existence in the jungles bordering the 

 Sind River in Bundelkund, which I now consider doubtful" (Blyth, 

 1863, p. 182). 



