THE LION 



(Felis leo) 



THE lion, undoubtedly, owes his title of "king of beasts " to the flowing 

 mane with which his head and fore-quarters are adorned, as this 

 confers upon him a dignity and grandeur of appearance entirely lacking 

 in his maneless partner. Without his mane it is, indeed, more than questionable 

 whether a lion would not be outclassed in style by a tiger. As it is, however, 

 the lion, at all events so far as appearance goes, has an undisputed claim to his 

 royal title ; the magnificent mien of his draped head and shoulders, his bold, 

 imperious eye, the powerful build of his lithe body, and his resounding roar of 

 defiance, presenting the very ideal of supreme strength and sovereignty. 



The tawny coat, which varies in tint from greyish or yellowish brown to 

 yellow, is evidently intended to harmonise with the dry grasses and the yellow 

 sand of the semi-desert tracts which form the favourite haunts of the lion ; and 

 this is confirmed by the fact that the newborn cubs are mottled with dark 

 brown, thus indicating their descent from a species with a mottled or spotted 

 coat adapted to a different environment. Indeed, Somali lions frequently retain 

 traces of these spots, more especially in the female ; and in German East Africa 

 there exists a race of the lion in which both sexes are more or less fully and 

 distinctly spotted. 



In popular estimation the lion is inseparably connected with Africa, 

 where it formerly ranged from one end of the continent to the other, although 

 it has long since disappeared from most parts of Tunis and Algeria, as well as 

 from Cape Colony. As a matter of fact, Felis leo is as much an Asiatic as an 

 African animal ; while in the time of Xenophon it was probably found so far west 

 as Thrace and Macedonia. Earlier still, that is to say in prehistoric times, its 

 range included the greater part of temperate Europe, not excepting the British 

 Isles. Unlike the tiger, however, the lion never inhabited the countries to the 

 east of the Bay of Bengal, nor penetrated to the swamps of Lower Bengal itself, 

 which are unsuited to its- habits. Even so late as the Mutiny, lions were to be 

 met with over a considerable tract in central India ; although they are nowa- 

 days restricted to that district of Kathiawar, known as the Gir, where they 

 survive only by protection. In the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris, as well 

 as in parts of Persia, lions are still to be met with ; but how numerous they 

 are in these countries is difficult to ascertain. 



In Africa lions appear to be most abundant in the British, German, and 

 Portuguese eastern provinces, in some districts of which they seem bolder and 



