CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 5. CARNIVORA. 



251 





A LIOX SPRIXGIXG DPON HIS PREY. 



moment up to the time they finally leave their parents, the young lions constantly follow the old 

 ones in pursuit of prey. From eight months to one year old, they commence to attack the flocks 

 of sheep or goats that may be found wandering in the vicinity of their retreat. Sometimes they 

 try their hand at catching horned cattle, but they are yet so awkward that there are often ten 

 wounded for one killed, and their father is obliged to come in and interfere, lest they go supper- 

 less to bed. 



" It is not until they are two years old that they know how to strangle a horse, an ox, or a 

 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 mate- 

 rials for the clumsy tyros. 



""V\ hen the 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 meager form, his unhappy look, his unhealthy shape, and his lack of mane 

 which gives him the appearance of a spaniel, and makes him an alien to his forest brother. 



"There are in Algiers three species of lions : the Black Lion, the Red or Tawny Lion, and the 

 Gray Lion, and they are styled by the Arabs, el adrea, el asfdr, and el zarzouri. The black lion 

 is a much rarer animal than the others, and has a more powerful head, neck, shoulders, and li 

 The lower part of his body is clad in a robe of the color of a dark bay horse, and the shoulders 

 are covered by a long, heavy black mane, that falls down on either side almost to the ground, 

 and gives to him an air not at all reassuring. The breadth of his forehead is eighteen inches ; the 

 length of his body, from the tip of his nose to the root of the tail, measures seven feet and a half, 

 and his tail, three feet The weight of his body varies between six hundred and six hundred and 

 sixty pounds. 



» "The Arabs are more afraid of this lion than the two others, and they have good reason to be. 

 Instead of migrating from place to place, the black lion takes up his residence in souk- favorite 

 "etreat, and remains there sometimes thirty years. He rarely descends into the plain to get his 

 ood in the Arab camps, but, in revenge for this forbearance, lies in wait for the herds as they 

 descend the mountain, and kills four or five beasts, merely for the pleasure of drinking their 



