HUNTING IN TKOOPS. 95 



We contemplated this scene for more than an hour, 

 in which these kings of animals never compromised 

 their dignity in the slightest degree." 



Though the lion, properly speaking, is not a 

 gregarious animal, he is still, not imfrcquently, 

 met with in smaller or larger troops. Indeed, I 

 myself have seen six or seven together, all of whom, 

 so far as I could judge, were full grown, or nearly 

 so ; and Freeman, after telling us that " it was a lion 

 country in which he was then travelling, but that 

 none had attacked his party, or had even the 

 curiosity to come to it," goes on to say, " A farmer, 

 in passing lately the same road as ourselves, saw 

 ten of those animals in company ; and another had 

 the gratification to count thirty, a sight that would 

 have thrown Gordon Gumming into ecstasies, and 

 many others into fits." 



Lions, let people say what they will to the 

 contrary, hunt in companies ; and on these occa- 

 sions, as will hereafter be shown, often display 

 much subtlety and cunning, playing, as it were, 

 into each others' hands. In many instances, it is 

 true, the troop simply consists of the several mem- 

 bers of the same family, but in others, beyond all 

 doubt, adult males and females congregate together 

 for the better circumvention of their prey. 



On one occasion, indeed, two adult lions and a 

 lioness were my companions, so to say, in a chaste. 

 The circumstances were as follows : 



"Whilst out hunting early one morning, I espied 

 a, small troop of gnoos, quietly gra/iiig at a bend 

 of the river. Cautiously approaching them under 



