82 Animal Life 
Regency till about 1895. 
The last lon was killed 
in Trmpolh about 1850. 
When the French landed 
at Algiers, in 1830, lions 
were common all over 
Algeria, except im the 
absolute sandy desert. 
In the 18th century 
lions were found in India 
from the Panjab* and Sindh 3 5 
to the Dekkan and Madras. << ~— : oS eo a 
Tia dhe Claneadene J ay — Photograph by W. P. Danto, F.Z.S., Regents Park. 
still more so in the days Bent ae ava 
of the Old mel iNew Shot in British East Africa. To show leopard-like spots 
Testament—the lon was met with in most parts of Syria and Palestine, in 
North-Western, South-Western and Eastern Arabia, as well as continuously through 
Southern Persiat and Baluchistan, from Mesopotamia to the Indus. In the southern 
and western parts of Asia Minor, in the adjoining Balkan Peninsula and Northern 
Greece, the lon still lingered in historic times and, as we learn from MHerodotos, 
preyed on the camels of the invading Persian armies. In prehistoric days the range 
of the hon extended (prior to the Glacial epoch) across Central Hurope, France, Italy 
and Spain to our own country of England,{ but apparently not to Ireland, where he is 
now bred so successfully in captivity. The existence of a British lion was brought home 
to me once with vividness. I was bicycling round the beautiful Mendip Hills in 
Somersetshire and visited the remarkable caverns of Wookey and Cheddar. The old 
owner and guardian of the Cheddar caves, hearing [ was an African traveller, said to 
me, “Do you recognise these?” He pointed to a fine skull of a lion and the skull 
of a leopard, both of them dug up a few days before in local excavations, and both 
looking as though they might just have been brought from Africa, for they were only 
shghtly staimed by infiltrations from the soil in which they had ong lain buried. 
The British lion differed but little in size 
or shape from the lion of to-day, but he 
possibly had less mane and was spotted 
all over his buff-coloured pelage. His fur 
was variegated with the single spots, rosettes 
and chest stripes of the leopard. On the 
limbs and belly these markings were in 
black, elsewhere in a dark chestnut brown. 
The mane bore no trace of definite spots. 
When it first developed from an exaggerated 
whisker growth of hair (such as one sees 
in lynxes and tigers) it was faintly striped. 
The lion, in short, is but a huge develop- 
ment of the leopard, and retains to this 
day (im his cub stage) the leopard’s spots 
Photograph by W. P. Dando, F.Z.S., Regents Park. and rosettes almost unaltered in shape and 
SKIN OF LION CUB. To show spots. arrangement. Gradually the spots have 
* Even so late as 1832 Captain Mundy notes the abundance of lions in the country north-west of Delhi. 
| Northern Persia and possibly Pontus and South Caucasia were the domain of the tiger. Northern Persia is still. 
{ As far north as the North Riding of Yorkshire. 
