74 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES CHAP. 



were in most cases of a flaming yellow, as they are, 

 according to my experience, in wild lions. In some 

 of them, however, the eyes were brownish and 

 sleepy-looking. 



When walking, wild lions hold the head rather 

 low, lower than the line of the back, and although, 

 when suddenly encountered, they will raise it for a 

 moment to take a look at the intruder, they will 

 soon lower it again and either trot away with a low 

 growl or else stand watching. A wild lion looks 

 his best and his worst, intensely savage but not at 

 all majestic, when standing at bay. I have the 

 pictures of four male lions, that I had chased on 

 horseback and brought to bay, very vividly im- 

 pressed on my memory. One was wounded, though 

 only slightly, the other three as yet untouched. 

 They all stood fairly facing me, their heads held 

 well clown below their mane-crowned shoulders, 

 their fierce yellow eyes gleaming, and their ears 

 laid flat, like the ears of an angry cat or leopard. 

 All the time they stood at bay they kept up a 

 constant succession of loud rumbling growls and 

 flicked their tails continually from side to side, 

 throwing them suddenly into the air before charg- 

 ing with louder, hoarser growls. 



In one respect the behaviour of these four angry 

 lions was quite different from that of an angry cat 

 or leopard, or even tiger. There was no suspicion 

 of snarling about them. Their mouths were held 

 slightly open, but instead of the upper lip being 

 drawn up so as to expose the upper canine teeth, it 

 was drawn down so as to completely cover them. 

 They stood thus with their mouths held slightly 

 open, growling savagely and twitching their tails 

 from side to side, until two of them charged before 

 I fired at them, and the other two I fired at and 

 killed before they could make up their minds to 

 charge. Now this abstention Irom all suspicion of 



