THE LION 
No lion whose spoor was crossed by these trained dogs could escape. It 
was followed with absolute certainty to where it had elected to spend the 
day in retirement, and as soon as it was found, the rest of the pack rushed 
in and bayed it. Even if a whole troop of lions and lionesses and young ones 
was followed, there were enough dogs to bay all of them, and as they 
charged out of cover surrounded by the barking dogs, they offered easy 
shots to the mounted hunters. Between seventy and eighty lions were 
killed in a few months by Mr Paul Rainey with the help of his dogs, and I 
believe that neither he nor any of his companions were ever charged by 
any one of these lions, their attention being so completely distracted by 
the yelping pack around them. Now, there can be no doubt that by killing 
man-eaters and lions which had taken to killing cattle and ostriches, 
Mr Paul Rainey has earned the gratitude of many of the settlers in East 
Africa, who not unnaturally look upon lions as vermin; but as the hope of 
bagging a lion is one of the chief inducements of British sportsmen to 
visit that country, it is to be hoped that Mr Paul Rainey — who is again 
about to visit East Africa, and whose dogs are still at Nairobi — will not be 
permitted to exterminate the lions in districts in which as yet there is no 
settlement. 
The two points of view as regards the wholesale killing of lions with 
the help of large packs of trained dogs is well exemplified in a letter which 
recently appeared in the “ East African Standard.” A gentleman who 
signed himself “A Sportsman” first wrote as follows: “I note you 
inform the public that Mr Paul Rainey is due to arrive at Nairobi shortly— 
I suppose to ‘ bag ’ a few more lions. Now, I should very much like to 
express my views on the methods this gentleman uses in 4 bagging ’ his 
lions. He goes out with a pack of dogs and gets on to the fresh scent, and 
after a short run the lion turns to bay, with a pack of dogs around him, 
and does not take the slightest notice of the sportsman, who rides up to 
within a few yards, and, with a steady shot, knocks his lion over dead. 
I believe Mr Paul Rainey himself has shot close on eighty lions and has only 
lost one dog, which shows us what danger there is in this so-called sport, 
and without a certain amount of danger to the hunter, big-game hunting 
is no longer sport, but slaughter. On the other hand, lions are vermin, 
and kill a certain amount of the settler’s stock; but this is nothing in 
comparison to the amount of money brought into this country by the 
big-game hunters, and, in my opinion, without the big-game hunters, 
this country could not, and will not, advance as it has in the past. 
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