4C6 HUNTING ADVENTURES. 



time the vultures began to gather, a sufficient sign that my prey h*l 

 died in some thicket." 



Since the death of the black lion of Archioua, his consort having 

 retreated from the neighborhood, it was for a time free from depre- 

 dations. But in the course of some months this lioness returned, 

 accompanied by a yellow lion and two young ones of about eighteen 

 months old. Cattle now began to disappear again every day and oc- 

 casionally horses, killed by the dam to feed her offspring. After 

 many complaints on the part of the peasants, Gerard established hia 

 quarters in the vicinity, and on the 3rd of December, 1846, intelli- 

 gence was brought him that the lion had just wounded a man and 

 killed a horse. He at once accompanied the messenger to the spot 

 where the animal had been strangled. On the borders of a wood near, 

 be found a pool of blood, and from that place, through a thicket of 

 oaastic of wild olive-trees, traced the course along which the lioness 

 aad dragged the horse to the foot of a ravine, a distance of six hun- 

 dred feet. The poor beast was lying on the ground still whole, and 

 with no other wounds than the bites of two huge teeth in his throat. 

 Gerard crept behind a tree about four feet from the carcass and waited 

 the result. 



The entire night passed without the appearance of anything. But 

 about six o'clock in the evening of the next day the approach of the 

 lioness was announced by the affrighted cries of birds, and the flight 

 of two raccoons who were roaming near the horse. The ravine being 

 very narrow, and every where well wooded, he could not perceive the 

 lioness until she had come up. to her prey. Her two young followed 

 her at a short distance. One of them advancing towards the horse, 

 the dam turned upon it, and frightening it away, drove it back to the 

 thicket. " She had distinguished me," says Gerard, " in my hiding 

 place. Stealthily she made a circuit around me, now hiding herself 

 from my sight, now showing her h jad above a bramble, as she looked 

 to see that I was still there. Suddenly she seemed to have entirely 

 disappeared. 



" I almost believed she had done so, when happening to cast my 

 eyes to my right, I saw her extended like a serpent, her head resting 

 upon her two paws, her eyes fixed upon mine, her tail swaying slowly 



