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ON ABNORMALLY MARKED LION CUBS 
of such a habit, and a most effective protection, simulating 
as it does the flecks of sunlight broken up by passing 
through foliage. 
The stripes of the tiger are held similarly to cause the 
body to resemble clumps of bamboos, and of the grasses 
in which they lurk, and the sand-coloured fur of the adult 
lion matches perfectly with the arid country in which it 
mainly finds a home. 
Eimer has concluded that the primitive colour condition 
was one of longitudinal stripes, that this by the breaking 
up of the stripes resolved itself into a spotted one, and 
that the spots afterwards re-arranged themselves into 
transverse stripes, the sand-coloured lion and puma, being 
the final stage in this colour evolution. 
If his conclusions be correct, we may look upon the 
longitudinal stripes upon the head and neck of the still- 
born cub as the primitive condition, and the spots and 
stripes as later developments, although it must be borne 
in mind that the light-coloured stripes are not the homo- 
logues of the dark stripes of the tiger, but of the interspaces 
between them. 
If the spotted character is the primitive coloration, and 
also indicative of an arboreal habit, then we must assume 
that the lion was formerly arboreal, and its preference for 
open country and scrub a later acquired habit. 
