722 ME. A. LOVBRIBGE : NOTES ON 



which, nfter an examination of the skin, I think very probable ; 

 most likely a puft'-adder. 



Tlie Wanyimwezi, AVanyiramba, and Warangi have a saying 

 that the witch doctors give a potion to the cheetah which endueii 

 it with snfficient coin-nge and fierceness, and causes it to rush oil" 

 into the bush, where it lies in wait for children and even adults 

 whom the witch-doctor wishes to be rid of : tlie creature pounces 

 npon them, lacerates theni, and laps the blood, but does not eat 

 the flesh, and presently leaves the body. 



Fklis LEO MASSAiCA Neuui. 



One specimen collected at Kilosa. Many others seen ; the dis- 

 tribution is so widespread in Tanganyika Territory that it would 

 serve no useful purpose to give localities. 



Manes as a. guide to subspecies ? Some lions broke into a hut 

 ^500 yards from Kilosa Boma on 4, ii. 22 and killed four goats : 

 traps baited with dead goats were set the following night and one 

 lion was killed ; the other, wounded in the nose, is the " specimen " 

 referred to above. This individual had a fine dark mane, and 

 was a full-grown male in its prime with splendid undamaged 

 teeth. The other was a very old male, nianeless, with woin and 

 broken teeth, very ill-nourislied, and with the spotting usually 

 associated with youth or females, very noticeable. 



Do lions climb trees? At Kipera on 26. xii. 22, I was coining 

 through a lot of rank sedge almost shoulder-high when I saw a 

 fine Avaterbuck on a slight eminence some two hundred yards 

 away. I fired, and the bullet struck a tree close behind him and 

 just below his head. ' I fired again, and he went down with a 

 roar. At the same moment a lioness sprang from a tree and 

 bounded away in full view to a thicket. My boys, who were some 

 little distance behind me, said that at the first shot they saw the 

 lioness put her head out of the foliage and peer about, and they 

 supposed I was firing at her, but with my attention rivetted on 

 the buck I never saw her till she sprang from the tree. An ex- 

 amination showed her claw marks, and I think she was at a height 

 of 12 feet from the ground .and about 10 feet from the buck, upon 

 which she was doubtless just about to spring. The tree was 

 not (juibe vertical, and the part she was sitting on was almost 

 horizontal. 



It is often said that only old toothless or injured lions turn 

 man-eafcers! The following incident is a good commentary. A 

 native woman at Tindiga, a few miles from Kilosa, venturing out- 

 side her hut 8.ii. 21, Avas sprung upon by a lion and eaten in the 

 mealies scarcely 50 feet from the hut. On ll.ii. they visited 

 a cattle boma and paraded round aiul round it. On 12. ii. they 

 squatted one on each side of a jumbe's door, as was evidenced by 

 their spoor ; they then went oft" and pounced for a man's foot 

 tlu'ough a reed wall : the occupants scared thevi oft' by making a 

 noise. On 13. ii. one of them tore out a bundle of grass from 



