INDIAN SHOOTING 



195 



reports of them in Central India ; but the writer has not heard 

 of one being shot in the last district for many years. The lion 

 is a less active animal than the tiger, and apparently not so 

 powerful ; in every case of a fight between the two occurring in 

 a menagerie the tiger has invariably killed his opponent. 



Essentially a wanderer, the Indian lion avoids heavy forest 

 as a rule, preferring sandy hills covered with thin scrub and grass, 

 and may be tracked and shot on foot in a way that it would 

 be foolhardiness to attempt with a tiger. There is a capital 

 account of the sport given in the ' Oriental Sporting Magazine/ 

 July 1876. The narrator came across four males, shot one 

 that charged him brilliantly, wounded and lost a second, and 

 missed a third. 



Native shikaris declare that lions always put up for the day 

 under the same bushes, and that consequently if there is a lion 

 about he is generally easily found. It would be curious if 

 African sportsmen could corroborate this story. 



Unlike tigers, there is a large preponderance of males to 

 females among full-grown lions, which is supposed to be attri- 

 butable to the mortality among female cubs in teething. 



Measurements 



1 A tiger of this length would only weigh about 300 Ibs. not cleaned. 



