7 o AFRICAN NATURE NOTES CHAP. 



them flat along the ground as hard as it could go, 

 and looked like an enormous mastiff, especially as, 

 though a male, it had but little mane. On another 

 occasion, late one evening, I saw a lion and two 

 lionesses lying in wait for some cattle of mine which 

 were feeding towards them. Every now and then 

 one or other of the lions would raise its head for a 

 moment above the grass to see that the oxen were 

 still coming on, lowering it again after one quick 

 look. But for my intervention, these lions would 

 probably have lain quite still until one or other of 

 the oxen had fed close up to them, when they would 

 have seized it by the head before it had time to 

 turn. As lions nearly always hunt by scent and by 

 night, they no doubt come up wind and approach 

 as near as possible to a herd of game before making 

 an attack, and probably often lie quite still until 

 some animal feeds right on to them. In a country 

 where game is plentiful, one would imagine that 

 on a dark night lions must have but little trouble 

 in securing food, and this is no doubt the case, as 

 these carnivora become excessively fat wherever 

 game is really plentiful. 



When a lion charges, it does not come on in 

 great leaps, nor does it strike its adversary a crush- 

 ing blow with its paw. It comes along close to the 

 ground like a great dog and bites, often so low 

 that its forefeet can hardly be off the ground. Two 

 Boer hunters of my acquaintance were both of 

 them first bitten in the thigh. Shortly after the 

 opening up of Mashunaland, too, an Englishman 

 and a Dane were both seized in the same way 

 by charging lions when hunting near the Pungwe 

 river, in Portuguese East Africa, the latter dying 

 from his wounds. In 1877 an Englishman was 

 charged by an unwounded lion in Mashunaland 

 and severely bitten in the groin ; and in the follow- 

 ing year, in the same locality, an old Hottentot 



