564 Great and Small Game of Africa 



region become very scarce. Two hundred years ago the lion was found 

 quite commonly in Tunisia. About the same time, so far as records go, 

 the last lion was killed in the adjoining Pashalik of Tripoli, where the 

 animal now seems to be entirely extinct. Lions still linger here and there 

 in South-East and South- West Algeria ; possibly also in Morocco. 



H. H. Johnston. 



< In Algeria 



Sid and Asad of Arabs 



The North African lion was in bygone ages undoubtedly very numerous. 

 I do not mean in remotest antiquity, or the times quite so far distant as 

 those, when lions attacked Xerxes and his camels in Greece. There is, 

 however, little doubt that the Romans drew their chief supply of lions for 

 the arena and gladiatorial combats from Mauritania and Numidia. Pliny 

 says, according to Holland's quaint translation (Holland's Pliny, 1601), 

 " Q. Scxvola, son of Publius, was the first that in his Curate ^Edileship 

 exhibited a fight and combat of many lions togither," and that " L Sylla 

 when Pretor represented a shew of an hundred Lions with manes and collars 

 of haire," and that " Pompeius the Great shewed 600 of them fighting in 

 the Grand Cirque, whereof 315 were male Lions with manes," also that 

 " Cassar Dictatour brought 400 of them into the shew place." Pliny is 

 more correct in describing the habits of lions than Herodotus, who, amongst 

 other remarkable facts, alleges that a lioness only once in her life brings 

 forth and then only one cub, as the first cub in entering the world tears 

 the inside of his mother to pieces with his claws ! Some of Pliny's 

 remarks are to the point, and modern lion-hunters can corroborate his 

 assertion that " if he chaunce to be wounded hee hath a marveilous eye to 

 marke the partie that did it and be the hunters never so many in number 

 upon him he runneth onely." The lion that walks about in the sandy or 



