100 THE LION. 



ceed in the chase, except at night," he goes on 

 to say : 



"At that season (the winter), therefore, one not 

 unfrequently sees those beasts in the day-time 

 hunting in large companies. The larger portion* 

 after forming a line, surround and drive the game 

 towards the gorges, the denies, and such passes in 

 the wood as are dense and difficult to traverse, 

 where one or more of the troop station themselves. 

 Such are the battues, conducted according to rule, 

 and without noise ; the emanations proceeding from 

 the lions, who always keep to windward of the 

 quarry, being sufficient to constrain the animals to 

 retreat before them. 



" On two several occasions, and that with only a 

 few minutes' intervals between them," Delegorgue 

 goes on to say, " I and my chasseurs came suddenly 

 (the dense brake having previously intercepted our 

 view) on such a line of lions; twenty at iirst, thirty 

 afterwards. A rhinoceros which we were ' stalking ' 

 appeared to be their specially-coveted object. Un- 

 fortunately our presence deranged their plan of 

 attack, and their presence constrained us to abandon 

 our first intention; and thus the rhinoceros owed 

 its safety to the ideas which simultaneously took pos- 

 session of two of its most formidable enemies." 



Gordon Gumming fully corroborates what Dele- 

 gorgue says as to the cunning theJion displays when 

 hunting in company. 



"I had," he writes, "lain about twenty minutes 

 in the waggon after my people had all started, and 

 was occupied in reading a book, when suddenly I 



