6 THE TOWER MENAGERIE. 
gerous to approach him unguardedly, even in his tamest 
and most domesticated state, without previously ascer- 
taining his immediate state of mind. On such occasions 
no keeper possessed of common prudence would be rash 
enough to venture upon confronting him: he knows too 
well that it is no boy’s play to 
seveesceeeeeeee S€CK the Lion in his den, 
And fright him there, and make him tremble there ; 
for in this state of irritation, from whatever cause it may 
have arisen, he gives free scope to his natural ferocity, 
unrestrained by that control to which at other times he 
submits with meek and unresisting patience. 
Happily for mankind the range of this tremendous 
animal is limited to the warmer climates of the earth; 
and even in these the extent of that range is constantly 
becoming more and more confined by the spread of 
human civilization, which, at the same time that it drives 
him to take refuge at a distance from the haunts of men, 
contributes greatly to thin his numbers and to diminish 
his power of annoyance. His true country is Africa, in 
the vast and untrodden wilds of which, from the immense 
deserts of the north to the trackless forests of the south, 
he reigns supreme and uncontrolled. In the sandy 
deserts of Arabia, in some of the wilder districts of 
Persia, and in the vast jungles of Hindostan, he still 
maintains a precarious footing: but from the classic soil 
of Greece, as well as from the whole of Asia Minor, both 
of which were once exposed to his ravages, he has been 
utterly dislodged and extirpated. 
There is some variation in the different races of Lions 
from these distant localities; but this is by no means of 
