ADVENTURES WITH LIONS. 5TE 
each increasing in loudness to the third or fourth, when his 
voice dies away in five or six low, muffled sounds, very much 
resembling distant thunder. At times, and not unfrequently, 
a troop may be heard roaring in concert, one assuming the 
lead, and two, three, or four more regularly taking up their 
parts, like persons singing a catch. Like our Scottish stags 
at the rutting season, they roar loudest in cold, frosty 
nights; but on no occasions are their voices to be heard 
in such perfection, or so intensely powerful, as when two or 
three strange troops of. lions approach a fountain to drink at 
the same time. When this occurs, every member of each 
troop sounds a bold roar of defiance at the opposite parties ; 
and when one roars, all roar together, and each seems to 
vie with his comrade in the intensity and power of his voice. 
The power and grandeur of these nocturnal forest concerts 
is inconceivably striking and pleasing to the hunter’s ear. 
The effect, I may remark, is greatly enhanced when the 
hearer happens to be situated in the depths of the “forest, 
at the dead hour of midnight, unaccompanied by any attend- 
ant, and ensconced within twenty yards of the fountain 
which the surrounding troops of lions are approaching. Such 
has been my situation many scores of times; and though I 
am allowed to have a tolerable good taste for music, I 
consider the catches with which I was then regaled as the 
sweetest and most natural I ever heard. 
As a general rule, lions roar during the night; their 
sighing moans commencing as the shades of evening envelop 
the forest, and continuing at intervals throughout the night. 
In distant and secluded regions, however, I have constantly 
heard them roaring loudly as late as nine and ten o’clock on 
a bright sunny morning. In hazy and rainy weather they 
are to be heard at every hour in the day, but their roar is 
subdued. It often happens that when two strange male 
lions meet at a fountain a terrific combat ensues, which not 
unfrequently ends in the death of one of them. The habits 
