THE LION ii 



in one area has led the writer, at least, to the belief 

 that the lack of uniformity exhibited in the presence 

 or absence of mane, varying distinctness of spots in some 

 adults, relative lengths of tail and so on, are in fact 

 merely so many individual or family characteristics, 

 dependent perhaps upon slight differences in their 

 surroundings. In the neighbourhood of the Sabi River, 

 for instance, in the north-east Transvaal, where the nights 

 in winter are very cold, practically all the adult male 

 lions are possessed of large bushy manes, sometimes 

 yellow, but more often black or tawny. The bush 

 being everywhere very thick and thorny, a forest life 

 does not appear to have the hurtful influence on this 

 hairy growth sometimes attributed to it. The animals 

 bearing the blackest manes are usually the darkest in 

 bodily colour, while a tawny or yellow mane is seldom seen 

 except on a light-tinted animal. Cubs out of the same litter 

 often show great variety in hue. 



Some thirty miles north of the Sabi, where the country 

 generally is comparatively open in character, and where, 

 consequent on the absence of any large body of water, 

 the night temperature is much more equable, male lions 

 are either maneless or possessed of light-coloured manes 

 of small size, while farther north again, near the large 

 Olifants and Letaba Rivers, where conditions are more 

 like those obtaining on the Sabi, the lions often have 

 a full growth of hair on neck and shoulders, though 

 seldom of very dark colour. I never saw a maneless 

 lion in the Sabi bush, and seldom a fully maned one 

 in the dry hot country lying between the great rivers. 

 It should be added that, owing to the immense numbers 

 of impala present in the Sabi bush, food is there very 

 easy to obtain, while in the more open country to the 

 north, lions certainly go hungry longer, and this high 



