HABITS OF THE LION. 21 



to strangle a horse, an ox or camel, with one grasp of the 

 jaw at the throat of the animal, and to leap the hedges seven 

 feet high, that are reputed to protect the Arab douars. 



This period, from the time of the birth of the cubs until 

 they are two years old, is truly ruinous for the people of the 

 country inhabited by one of these happy families. Indeed 

 they not only kill to eat, but they kill to learn to kill. It is 

 easy to understand what such an apprenticeship must cost to 

 those who furnish the materials for the clumsy tyros. 



But it might be said, why do the Arabs let themselves be 

 eaten by lions, without hunting and killing them ? To this I 

 would answer, read the details of the following chapter, and 

 then if you ever pasture cattle in Africa, you will herd them 

 at night behind walls fifteen feet high, or you will do as the 

 Arabs. 



When the lion's whelps reach the age of three years they 

 leave their parents in order to get married; and the old 

 couple, unwilling to remain alone, replace them by a new 

 family. 



The lions are not full grown until their eighth year, and 

 then they attain their full strength and size, and the male, a 

 third larger than the female, grows his full mane. We 

 should not judge the lion living in his wild state, by his 

 degenerate brother confined in a menagerie. The latter has 

 been taken from its mother before being weaned, and has 

 been raised like a rabbit, deprived of the maternal milk, and 

 debarred from the desert life of liberty, and the living food its 

 bravery conquered. From his seclusion arises his meagre 

 form, his unhappy look, his unhealthy shape, and his lack of 



