THE ZOOLOGIST 



No. 236.— August, 1896. 



THE PRESENT RANGE OF THE LION IN INDIA. 



A writer in a recent number of the Calcutta 'Asian,' who 

 has resided for twelve years in the province of Kathiawar, where, 

 in the Gir Forest, the Lion is still occasionally to be found, gives 

 the following account of its present haunts as compared with its 

 former range in India, and hints at the causes which have con- 

 tributed to its gradual extinction. He writes : — " We are told 

 that a few Lions are still left in Guzerat and Kutch ; but such is 

 not the case.* I am rather doubtful if Lions were ever found in 

 Kutch ; at any rate, there are none left there now, and they have 

 long since ceased to exist in the district of Guzerat, where at one 

 time they are said to have been fairly plentiful. The last Lion 

 seen in these districts was, I believe, the one which was shot near 

 the Deesa Cantonment by the late Colonel Heyland, of the 1st 

 Bombay Cavalry. At the present day Lions are only found in 

 the Gir Forest in Kathiawar ; formerly they abounded in all the 

 wilder parts of the province, such as the Barda, Aleche, and 

 Girnar Hills, as well as in the hilly tracts round Rajkot and 

 Jasdan. 



"It is said that in the year 1832-33 the officers of the 3rd 

 Bombay Cavalry, stationed at Rajkot, used to shoot Lions off 

 horseback, but those good times are gone for ever, and now the 

 Gir Forest is the only place in the province where Lions are still 



* It is curious to find so recent a writer as Mr. Sterndale, who ought to 

 be well informed, perpetuating this myth in 1884 (Nat. Hist. Mamm. India 

 and Ceylon, p. 161). — Ed. 



ZOOLOGIST, THIRD SERIES, VOL. XX. — AUGUST, 1896. Z 



