The Lion 91 



away, without deigning to notice the gross but appropriate 

 epithet Mohammed sent after her, instead of a bullet, as 

 she went off." 



This otherwise excellent sketch loses something of its 

 vraisemblance from carelessness and inaccuracy in execu- 

 tion, and also from an unfortunate style, which gives to 

 most French narratives of this kind, however true, the air 

 of romances. Gerard knew that a doe is never accom- 

 panied for any length of time by several stags, and there 

 can be no excuse for making a lion range the woods with 

 an ox in his mouth. 



When cubs are about two months old, they begin to 

 forage in the vicinity of their lair. This hunting, how- 

 ever, is more than half play, for they are sprightly little 

 creatures whose gambols and infantile familiarities soon 

 become distasteful to the grave and morose nature of their 

 father. The lion then takes up his quarters out of their 

 reach, but at the same time near enough to come to the 

 assistance of his family if aid should be needed. Two 

 cubs as a rule are born together, and one of these is 

 generally a male. If the birth be single, this is said to 

 be invariably the case, so that the fact that males con- 

 siderably outnumber females is accounted for, and with it 

 both the wantonness of the latter, and those trials to which 

 their consorts are exposed. The race maintains its place 

 by the sacrifice of its weaker numbers. The strongest 

 whelps and most powerful lions live, mate, and kill or 

 dispossess their rivals. Sexual selection on the lionesses' 

 part aids this process, and the result is, as everywhere 

 and always, that the fittest survive, and transmit their 



