Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 3 



at prefent are the Barbary, Senegal, and Perfian 

 lion. The disappearance of the lion before 

 civilized life and agriculture is only fecond to that 

 of the elephant. Lions have died out in Egypt, 

 Syria, and Paleftine as well as in our continent, 

 and are being driven farther and farther into the 

 tracklefs wilds of South Africa as population 

 fpreads up the river valleys, and grafly dopes are 

 enclofed for farms. Herodotus tells us that lions 

 abounded on the rocky portions of Macedonia 

 and Theflaly. They attacked the baggage animals 

 of Xerxes on his march through thefe diftricts into 

 Greece, and fell fpecially upon the camels. The 

 hiftorian naively wonders at them for abandoning 

 their ordinary habits of preying on horfes, oxen, 

 and men to attack camels, a creature which they 

 could never before have feen. He gives a moft 

 valuable notice, too, of the region haunted by 

 thefe lions, which, it feems, was from the river* 

 Achelous (the prefent Afpro Potamo) in the weft 

 to the Neftus or Mefto in the eaft, the boundary 

 bet"" .in Thrace and Macedonia. 1 As fhowing 

 the tendency of the ancient natural hiftorians to 

 copy one another, it is worth remarking that 

 Ariftotle and Pliny, when treating of lions, give 

 the fame limits for them. Cybele's chariot was 

 reprefented as drawn by lions ; another teftimony 

 that the early Greeks knew the character of the 

 localities frequented by thefe animals. Of Arif- 

 totle's two kind of lions, the thicker and more 

 hairy variety feems to refer to the ordinary 



1 Bk. vii. 125, 126. 



