1904.] FIELD XATURAL HISTORY OF THE LIOX. 265 



daytime unless roused from his laii- in the gloom of some dense 

 clump of bush or reed-bed — is quite en-oneous. It is the fact that 

 Lions are heard very miich moi'e at night than in daytime ; never- 

 theless they are largely diurnal as well, though usually silent. 



I have heard Lions roaring at noon on one or two occasions, 

 and I have many times heard them as late as an hour or more 

 after sunrise, and as early in the evening as an hour or more before 

 sunset. The usual time is at sunset and a little after, and more 

 especially about dawn in the early morning and thence onwards 

 until broad daylight. I have seen Lions at all times of day, 

 under all sorts of conditions, in all sorts of country, in all sorts of 

 weather from misty rain to the hottest noonday sun of the 

 tropics. 



It is certainly not my experience that the Lion's habit is to 

 hide himself in dark cover in the daytime — far from it. Other 

 circumstances being equal, he likes open country and sunlight, 

 and goes about and lies out in it freely, nothing being more to 

 his liking than some coign of vantage commanding a view of the 

 neighbourhood, where he can stretch himself out and sun'^ey the 

 prospect. I have seen a Lioness and three cubs lying out on a 

 river sand-spit in Henga in the full glare of the early afternoon 

 tropical sun, stretched out on her belly, with her cubs crawling 

 about her back and neck and tumbling over on to the sand. On 

 another occasion about 10 a.m., also in Henga, I saw a Lioness 

 sitting up on her haunches on a fiat-topped ant-hiU, watching and 

 listening to my men talking and laughing as they were skinning 

 an Impala shot half an hour previously. 



The same instant as I made her out and levelled my glasses on 

 her at a distance of some 300 yards, she slunk down behind the 

 ant-hill — melting away, as it were, in the endeavour to make hei' 

 movement as unnoticeable as possible. 



I have seen a Lioness crossing the bare scorching lava-covered 

 plain intervening between the East- Africa and Uganda Pro- 

 tectorates in the fierce heat of noon at midsummer, with the heat 

 radiating in lambent tongues from the gi-ound, giving her the 

 appearance of being enveloped in fire. 



Nothing had disturbed her, as this country was uninhabited Ijy 

 man ; she was making her way to the water. 



On another occasion I saw three half-gi^own cubs near the same 

 spot in the early afternoon, in the hottest sunlight, playing about 

 in the open on the banks of the stream. 



Once, in Henga, I came across a troup of five Lions on the move 

 at noonday. It had been raining about an hour before, but the 

 su.n was then out in all its power of midsummer, as they crossed 

 from open country to go into the scrub on the banks of the 

 Liinyina River. 



In Henga, in 1893, about an hour after sunrise in the hottest 

 time in all the year, a full-grown dark-maned Lion passed down 

 the valley below me following a game-track at a long striding 

 walk, throwing up his head and roaring at intervals as he went, 



