CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 5. CARNIVORA. 



249 





"The place once clear, the noble victor shakes out his mane to the wind, with a long roar 

 and then conies and stretches himself at the feet of his love, who, for the first mark of her favor 

 licks the wounds he has received on her account with a fawning grace that awakens the ten- 

 derest emotions in his susceptible heart. When two old lions meet upon the same adventure, 

 the affair is not so gayly 

 terminated. Mohammed, an 

 Arab of the tribe of Kesenna, 

 told me of a combat of this 

 nature where he was a spec- 

 tator, although much against 

 his will. It was in the pair- 

 ing season for stao\s, and Mo- 

 hammed, a great hunter of 

 ev rv kind of wild animals, 

 perched himself at sunset in 

 the boughs of an oak-tree, 

 to watch for a doe that he 

 had seen wandering in the 

 vicinity, accompanied by sev- 

 eral stags. The tree which 

 he had climbed was situated 

 in the' middle of a laro-e clear- 

 ing, and near a path that led 

 into the neighboring forest. Toward midnight he saw a lioness enter the clearing, followed by a 

 red lion with a full-grown mane. The lioness strolled from the path, and came and laid herself 

 down at the foot of the oak, while the lion remained in the path, and seemed to be listening to 

 some noise as yet inaudible to the hunter. 



" Mohammed then heard a distant roaring in the forest, and immediately the lioness answered 

 it. Then the lion commenced to roar with a voice so loud that the frightened hunter let tall 

 his gun, and held on the branches with both hands, lest he might tumble from the tree. As the 

 voice of the animal that had been heard in the distance gradually approached, the lioness wel- 

 comed him with renewed roarings, and the lion, restless, went and came from the path t<> the 

 lioness, as though he wished her to keep silence, and from the lioness to the path, as though to 

 say, ' Let him come, the vagabond, he'll find his match.' 



"In about an hour a large lion, as black as a wild boar, stepped out of the forest and stood in 

 the full moonlight on the other side of the clearing. The lioness raised herself to go to him, 

 hut the lion, divining her intent, rushed before her and marched straight at his adversary. With 

 step measured and slow, they approached to within a dozen pace's of each other — their great 

 heads high in air, their tails slowly sweeping down the grass that grew around them. They 

 crouched to the earth — a moment's pause — and then they bounded with a roar high in air, and 

 rolled on the ground, locked in their last embrace. The battle was long and fearful to the 

 involuntary witness of this midnight duel. The bones of the combatants cracked under their 

 powerful jaws, their talons strewed the grass with entrails, and painted it red with blood, and 

 their roarings, now guttural, now sharp and loud, told their rage and agony. 



"At the beginning- of the contest, the lioness crouched herself on her belly, with her eyes fixed 

 upon the gladiators, and all the while the battle raged, manifested, by the slow eat-like motion 

 of her tail, the pleasure she felt at the spectacle. When the scene closed, and all was quiet and 

 silent in the moonlight glade, she cautiously approached the battle-ground, and snuffing the dead 

 ,bodies of her two lovers, walked leisurely away, without deigning to answer the gross; but appro- 

 priate epithet that Mohammed hurled at her as she went, instead of a bullet. 



■'This example of the conjugal coquetry and fidelity of the lioness is applicable to all her 

 species. What she desires is a lover full grown and brave, who will drive away the young lions., 

 whose beardless chins and constant quarrels offend her delicacy and trouble her repose. Sueh a 



Vol. I. — 32 



