428 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



upon their admissibility. Our own collection of drawings 

 would also furnish us with figures of many apparently new 

 species, a small selection from which will be engraved and 

 inserted. 



They may be divided into small groups by certain pecu- 

 liarities of colour ; the first of these groups includes the 

 single-coloured uniform large species, and includes only the 

 Lion and the Puma. 



The superior bodily powers possessed by the Lion, joined 

 to his carnivorous regimen and consequent predacious ha- 

 bits, while they place him at the head of the beasts of prey, 

 and make him also the undisputed tyrant and universal 

 dread of the plains and forests, point obviously to the si- 

 tuation in which he must be regarded as the first and most 

 important species of the carnivora. 



Verbal description, or even the best of figures, will convey 

 but a very inadequate notion of this tremendous animal. 

 The rhetorician and the painter alike fail in describing and 

 depicting the terrific work of nature exhibited in this king 

 of beasts. 



The specific characters are thus given by our author, " a 

 large Yellow Cat, with tufted tail, the neck of the adult 

 male furnished with a thick mane." These vary in slight 

 degrees, as we shall notice presently. If the ancients had 

 any authority in nature for the male Lion without a mane, 

 sometimes figured in their statuary, the species is lost, or 

 at least unknown to modern research *. 



* Major Smith was lately informed by Professor Kretschmen of 

 Frankfort, that he was in expectation of receiving from Nubia the 

 skin and jaws of a new species of Cat, larger than the Lion, of a 

 brownish colour, and without mane. The invoice of the articles 

 from Cairo was already received, but the objects themselves were 

 not arrived. This will probably, says the Major, prove to be the 

 maneless Lion of the ancients, known to them by their acquaint- 

 ance with Upper Egypt; and not unfrequently observed in the 

 hieroglyphic sculptures of that country. 



