THE LION 
fact that he once saw, on the borders of Bechuanaland and the Western 
Transvaal, nine troops or families of lions in one day. To-day, on the open 
grass downs of British and German East Africa, Grant’s zebras ( Equus 
burchelli granti) are excessively plentiful, and they undoubtedly form the 
favourite food of the lions frequenting these territories. But all the larger 
antelopes, such as hartebeests, wildebeests, elands, koodoos, water bucks, 
oryxes, and sable and roan antelopes, are also constantly preyed upon by 
lions, as well as warthogs, and any smaller animals they are able to catch; 
and when hard pushed for food these carnivora will even kill porcupines 
and crunch up tortoises. A case, too, of two lions surprising and killing a 
monkey as it came to drink came under my own notice. Wild ostriches are 
sometimes surprised at night and killed by lions; but, although a few 
instances of the kind have come under my own observation, I had always 
thought them of rare occurrence. The determined attacks, however, made 
by two parties of lions in 1911 on two ostrich camps situated on the Kapiti 
Plain, just north of the Uganda Railway, in British East Africa, would 
seem to show that these birds have a strong attraction for lions, and it is 
possible that many more of them in a wild state are killed by these animals 
than has been generally supposed. The full account of what occurred on 
one of these two ostrich farms was given to me a short time ago by Mr R. 
Woosnam, the present chief game ranger in British East Africa, and, to 
the best of my remembrance, what happened was as follows: All round 
the enclosure in which the ostriches were confined at nights strong wooden 
posts had been driven deep into the ground at intervals of four feet, the 
intervening spaces being filled in with barbed -wire entanglements of 
the strongest and most intricate description. Upwards of seven miles of 
barbed wire are said to have been employed in the construction of this 
fence, which was ten feet high, and enclosed an area of forty yards square. 
This strong fence of posts and barbed wire was itself surrounded by a 
thick thorn fence. The native boys who herded the ostriches (fifty-one 
in number) in the daytime occupied huts placed at the corners of the 
enclosure. Early one night six lions came up to the fence, and, of course, 
were able to see the ostriches through the interstices of the barbed wire, 
against which they seem repeatedly to have thrown themselves without 
being able to break through. The barbed wire was sunk deep in the ground 
between the posts, but at last one or more of the lions managed with teeth 
and paws to tear some of it loose, and so to form a very small opening, 
through which, however, they crept one after another into the enclosure. 
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