FELIDA 597 
surface of the body, wanting, however, in some examples.! It must, 
however, be observed that these characters are peculiar to the adults 
of the male sex only, and that young lions show indications of 
the darker stripes and mottlings so characteristic of the greater 
number of the members of the genus. 
The usual colour of the adult is yellowish-brown, but it may 
vary from a deep red or chestnut brown to an almost silver gray. 
The mane, as well as the long hair of the other parts of the body, 
sometimes scarcely differs from the general colour, but it is usually 
darker and not unfrequently nearly black. The mane begins to 
grow when the animal is about three years old, and is fully de- 
veloped at five or six. 
In size the Lion is only equalled or exceeded by the Tiger 
among the existing Felidw;, though both species present great 
variations, the largest specimens of the latter appear to surpass the 
largest Lions. A full-sized South African Lion, according to Selous, 
measures slightly less than 10 feet from nose to tip of tail, follow- 
ing the curves of the body. Harris gives 10 feet 6 inches, of which 
the tail occupies 3 feet. The Lioness is about a foot less. The 
tongue, like that of the other species of the genus, is long and flat, 
and remarkable for the development of the papille of the anterior 
part of the dorsal surface, which (except near the edge) are modified 
so as to resemble long, compressed, recurved, horny spines or claws; 
these, near the middle line, attaining the length of one-fifth of an 
inch. They give the part of the tongue on which they occur the 
appearance and feel of a coarse rasp, and serve the purpose of such 
an instrument in cleaning the flesh from the bones of the animals 
on which the Lions feed. 
The habits of the Lion in a state of nature are fairly. well known 
from the united observations of numerous travellers and sportsmen 
who have explored those districts of the African continent in which 
it is still common. It lives chiefly in sandy plains and rocky places 
interspersed with dense thorn-thickets, or frequents the low bushes 
and tall rank grass and reeds that grow along the sides of streams 
and near the springs where it es in wait for the larger herbivorous 
animals on which it feeds. Although it is occasionally seen abroad 
during the day, especially in wild and desolate regions, where it is 
subject to but little molestation, the night is, as in the case of so 
many other predaceous animals, the period of its greatest activity. 
It is then that its characteristic roar is chiefly heard, as thus graphi- 
cally described by Gordon Cumming :— 
1 Mr. Selous, whose opportunities for obtaining evidence upon this subject 
were very large, says that in the region of South Africa, between the Zambesi 
and the Limpopo rivers, he never saw a lion with any long hair under the body, 
and that the manes of the wild lions of that district are far inferior in develop- 
ment to those commonly seen in menageries in Europe. 
