112 BEASTS AND MEN 
in the matter these animals are thoroughly fertile up to the 
age of sixteen, but not after that time. The director, whose 
error was very naturally caused by the youthful appearance 
of the lioness, eventually took another specimen which has 
proved highly satisfactory. 
Lions may be considered sexually mature at the age of 
two and a half years, but to obtain really strong offspring, it 
is desirable to wait for another year. In the case of tigers, 
according to my observations, sexual maturity arrives in cap- 
tivity a year later than with lions. The capacity to reproduce 
their kind endures with all the cat-tribe for about twelve 
years, and expires therefore during the sixteenth or seven- 
teenth year. 
I had an experience in the breeding of jaguars about the 
year 1870, when a Hungarian traveller brought from Para- 
guay two pairs of large, full-grown jaguars. The jaguars, 
which the Hungarian had captured himself, were already 
well on in years. I should have much liked to possess these 
animals, but I was compelled to refrain from the purchase, 
as the price asked was too high for me; they were bought 
by the menagerie owner, Manders, who in those days had 
the largest menagerie in England, and he succeeded in ob- 
taining several litters from the two pairs, the young cubs 
being excellently brought up by their mothers. 
Among many fortunate experiments, I succeeded in breed- 
ing two beautiful little cubs from a pair of captured ounces 
during the year 1906. The parents were cripples, each of 
them lacking a hind foot, and it was in consequence difficult 
to find a purchaser for them. I therefore arranged a nice 
secret recess in their cage, and placed the cage so that the ani- 
mals could not be disturbed. Barely two months later, signs of 
mutual affection between the two animals were to be observed, 
and in the middle of May my keeper informed me that a 
couple of young ones had been born. Naturally, after this 
occurrence great care was taken to avoid disturbing the ounces 
in any way ; they were fed and watered, and the cage was 
