THE WONDERS OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



THE LION, TIGRESS, AND CUBS, 



IN THE MENAGERY OF Mr. ATKINS. 



Feom the earliest period, naturalists have concurred in considering the Lion the most majestic inha- 

 bitant of the Desert. With justice has he been denominated the monarch of the brute creation, the 

 sovereign of the animal kingdom. His majestic gait — his ferocious courage — his unequalled powers 

 of destruction — his magnanimity and gigantic strength, justly entitle him to the investiture of a 

 royal animal, and to hold the first place in rank and importance in the pages of natural history. 



It is, however, a subject of congratulation, that the range of this tremendous animal is limited to 

 particular portions of the globe, and that even in those very districts, his species seems to be diminish- 

 ing. The cause of this diminution is not difficult to be assigned; for, in proportion as human civili- 

 zation extends itself, the desert becomes peopled, the haunts of the lion and the hyaena are encroached 

 upon, and man, who alone is able to compete with those monsters of the forests, declares an intermi- 

 nable war against them, considering that on the annihilation of their species depend his safety and his 

 existence. In the vast and solitary deserts of Zaara, as yet untrodden by the foot of man, and where 

 the monotony of the scene is alone broken by the roar and yells of the prowling animals, the lion 

 may be said to reign with undisputed power. He possesses no instinctive fear of man, and this is 

 evinced by the undaunted ferocity with which he makes his attack in those districts most remote 

 from human habitations. It is in the recesses of the burning deserts that the lion presents himself 

 in all the ferocity and sanguinary disposition of his nature. He becomes the terror of the sur- 

 rounding countries in which he makes his predatory incursions ; and having satiated himself with 

 his prey, he retires in the consciousness of his unconquerable strength, to repose in his gloomy cave, 

 until hunger again impels him to sally forth, to spring upon the powerless monkey, or the unsuspect- 

 ing antelope. 



It is generally known that the lion and the tiger entertain a violent antipathy for each other ; and 

 the circumstance, therefore, of a lion and a tigress cohabiting and producing young in this country is 

 so rare a phenomenon in the natural history of those animals, especially as both of them have, as it 

 were, been bred under the dominion of man, and not in the fastnesses of their native woods, that 

 it has been purposely selected as a subject possessing such an extraordinary degree of interest and 

 novelty, as to render it worthy of occupying the first place in the description of the Wondeks of 

 the Animal Kingdom. 



The authenticity of the following statement is placed beyond the question of doubt, as it was 

 transmitted purposely for this work by Mr. Atkins, in a letter from Exeter to the Author; and it 

 may be considered as a most curious document, descriptive of a sexual union of two animals, between 

 whom all propagation has been hitherto considered as an abortive experiment. 



Mr. Atkins commences by stating that the lion, the sire of the cubs, was bred in his own collection, 



