182 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
and how we feel that at each new dint of the steel, remorse pene- 
trates deeper into the gangrened conscience of the guilty one ! It 
is he that would now like to make tracks, and who bites his nails 
to the quick for having yielded awhile since to such bad thoughts. 
What the devil had he to do with the cursed business ! If the 
thing was to be begun again, how he would not do it at all 1 . . . 
IN’o doubt of it, but it is too late ; the crime has been committed. 
Blood calls for blood. The winding up hastens; the tree falls, 
drawing down with it the guilty one who has not even time to re- 
cover from his confusion at such a shock. Hardly has he touched 
the ground before the lioness is upon him. She seizes him by the 
throat, clasps him round, and stifles him in her embraces, to swal- 
low with her enemy's last drop of blood, the last throb of his 
heart. Their vengeance satisfied, the lion and the lioness make 
two parts of the prey, and offer the best to the man, swearing to 
him at the same time their kingly and queenly faith, that they will 
never in life forget the service he has done them. 
The history does not add that since this time they have always 
lived in good understanding with each other ; it only leaves this to 
be supposed. 
I lately heard the following anecdote from a young hunter. I 
warrant it as authentic no more than the last one. 
‘‘We were crossing," says he, “the vast pine forests of Califor- 
nia, so remarkable for the absolute silence which reigns under their 
vaults. One day as we approached the edge of one of those im- 
mense glades with which these sombre forests are pierced, and 
where the resinous trees yield to other fragrant scents, we heard 
quite near us a growling, which seemed to come from above our 
heads, and which my companion, a Western hunter of the old 
stock, recognized at the first note for the voice of a bear ; and we 
forthwith made ourselves small, and glided through the brush- 
wood to try to discover the place where the animal was perched. 
“ A second growl of anger, deeper toned than the first, and which 
seemed to be followed by another growl of interior satisfaction, 
calls our eyes toward a gigantic persimmon, situated about twenty 
yards from us, and whose boughs and shade are the scene of a 
comical drama. 
