244. BIG GAME SHOOTING 
the remains of more buffaloes which have been killed by lions 
than anything else. The zebra comes next, and then the 
hartebeest. Since, however, the buffaloes have been decimated 
by disease, the zebra, of which there are still countless herds, 
will probably stand first. Although I have carefully examined 
the carcases of several buffaloes and zebras, I have never been 
able to discover anything about them to warrant my expressing 
an opinion as to how they had actually been killed by the 
lions. The most noticeable thing about two freshly killed 
buffaloes and one zebra was the terrible way in which they were 
lacerated about the hind-quarters, evidently by the lions at their 
first spring and during the subsequent desperate struggle before 
they actually killed them, In every case when I found a fresh 
kill the stomach had been torn open, and the liver, heart, and 
entrails had formed the first meal. On one occasion I was 
attracted by vultures to the spot where a lion and two lionesses 
had shortly before killed a cow buffalo, and I had a good 
opportunity of watching them before I fired, as I was well con- 
cealed. The lion was devouring the entrails, &c., and one 
lioness was tearing at the throat, whilst the other, which I did 
not see at the time, was lying under a bush close by, eating 
a foetus calf which she had dragged out of the cow. After 
shooting the lion and severely wounding a lioness, which 
unfortunately got away, I carefully examined the buffalo, which 
was lying onits right side, with its head twisted round until the 
back of its head, and the curved points of both horns were 
resting on the ground, with its nose upwards. The soft part 
of the nose had been eaten off, the tongue torn out by the 
gullet underneath the lower jaw, and the flesh under the 
uppermost foreleg was also eaten away ; the tail had been bitten 
short off at the root and was lying on the ground, and a small 
piece of each hind-quarter just below the tail had also gone. 
The stomach was torn open, the liver, heart, and part of the 
entrails eaten, and the foetus calf was also half eaten. When 
my men had cut the remainder of the beast up to sell to the 
natives for flour, &c., I examined the vertebre of the neck, but 
a a ee a oe 
