LIONS. 1G9 



bear to eat, but long refused food for himself, and 

 when the last accounts were received, continued to 

 guard the bear as jealously as possible. 



The lioness has no mane, is smaller and more slender 

 in her proportions than the male ; she carries her head 

 even with the line of her back, and wants the majestic 

 courage of the lion, but she is more agile. Her temper 

 is more irritable, and Mr. Gordon Gumming says, ' She 

 is more dangerous before she has been a mother ; yet 

 every vestige of tameness or docility vanishes when she 

 is a mother, and she is then in a constant state of excite- 

 ment, getting into the most violent fury if any one should 

 attempt to touch her cubs.' The story of the lioness 

 which one night attacked one of the horses of the Exeter 

 mail has been told so many different ways that I am 

 glad to copy the correct account from Captain Brown's 

 Popular Natural History : ' She had made her escape 

 from a travelling menagerie, on its way to Salisbury 

 fair, and suddenly seized one of the leading horses. 

 This of course produced great alarm and confusion, 

 which was not lessened by perceiving what the enemy 

 was, and two inside passengers took refuge in a house. 

 A large mastiff attacked the intruder, upon which she 

 quitted the horse and turned upon him. He fled, but she 

 pursued and killed him after running forty yards. On 

 the alarm being given, her keepers went after her, till 

 she took refuge under a granary, with the dog still 

 within her teeth. They barricaded her there to prevent 

 her escape, and she roared there so loudly that she was 

 heard half a mile off. She was afterwards secured and 

 taken to her den, and of course her adventure increased 

 the celebrity of the menagerie to which she belonged. 

 Before this happened she was considered as very tame, 



