no FLESH-EATERS OF THE LAND 



swallow the pieces, and digest them. In fact, a dog 

 requires occasional bones to keep it in good health ; but 

 the Cat can neither crack bones nor digest them. Yet, 

 when a Cat has torn the flesh from the bones there is 

 still much meat adhering to them which cannot be removed 

 by the teeth. Now the peculiar tongue comes into opera- 

 tion. Its upper surface is covered with a number of 

 sharply-pointed projections, all directed backwards, and 

 feeling like a soft rasp ; and with this apparatus is licked off 

 every particle of flesh adhering to the bones. 



The pupil of the Cat's eye is highly dilatable, closing to a 

 narrow slit in broad light, but opening widely in the dark 

 to admit all available light, so that the animal can see well 

 in darkness. The long upper lip is fringed with stiff hairs 

 or whiskers, the bases of which spring from very delicate 

 nerves, enabling the domestic cat, for example, to gauge the 

 size of a hole even when in complete darkness. 



The range of the Cat tribe is wide, although it does not 

 extend into the cold regions so far as the Dogs and the 

 Bears. Carnivorous and sanguinary to the last degree, it is 

 fortunate that Cats almost invariably hunt their prey alone ; 

 if they possessed the instinct of sociality, a troop of lions or 

 tigers hunting in concert would be an appalling scourge 

 that man could not withstand. 



LION (Felts led). 

 Coloured Plate V. Fig. 3. 



The Lion is a typical Cat save for one feature ; the pupil 

 of its eye does not narrow to a slit. It is the largest 

 of the Felidae, standing about three and a half feet 

 high, six feet in length, and with a tufted tail about a 

 yard long ; a female or Lioness is somewhat smaller, 

 but large Lions, weighing as much as 500 Ibs., occa- 

 sionally exceed these dimensions. The coat varies from 

 dull tawny to yellow or silvery grey, the ears and tuft at 

 the end of the tail and the mane of the male being more or 

 less black. The hair of the wild animal is shorter and closer 

 than that of one in captivity. 



