566 Great and Small Game of Africa 



100 tents, lost on average annually, 3 horses, 25 cattle, and 75 sheep 

 from the depredations of lions and panthers, or equal to a tax of 5000 

 francs a year ! Gerard, whose lion-hunting exploits charmed the youthful 

 days of many a head now gray, calculated that each lion, on an average, 

 levied, during a life of thirty-five years, taxes amounting to £8400 on the 

 population. It was no wonder that the French Government gave a 

 capitation fee for his destruction. But before the French came, the Turks 

 had encouraged the Arabs to destroy them by freeing the two great lion- 

 hunting tribes, the Ouled Meloul and Ouled Cessi, from all taxes and 

 paying liberally for their skins. The French gave only 50 francs for a 

 skin. 



Between 1873 and 1883 the process of extinction is measured in the 

 Government returns. The numbers killed for the whole of Algeria were, in 

 the last six years of this period, 1878, 28 ; 1879,22; 1880,16; 1881,6; 

 1882, 4; 1883, 3 ; (1884, 1) ; and for the decade- 

 Province of Algeria . . .29 

 ,, „ Constantine . .173 

 ,, Oran . . . o 



There are a few lions still left in the Province de Constantine, in the 

 thick forests between Soukarras and La Calle. They are rarely seen, and 

 a hunter might spend a month before coming on a fresh track. The 

 Algerian lion seems to have been justly accredited in old days with greater 

 courage and audacity than others, but now he keeps clear of man and flies 

 from an unarmed native. It is now a very rare occurrence for a lion to 

 attack the flocks and herds of the Arabs, and he never springs into the 

 douar as he did of old ; he lives by hunting. The wild boar and red deer 

 are the chief contributors to the support of the king of beasts. Gerard, the 

 "Tueur des Lions," killed thirty lions between 1848 and 1856; his accounts 

 of their doings appear almost incredible, even in a country abounding in 



