THE LION. 
243 
the animal was only once or twice disco¬ 
vered to have touched the ground. Another 
seized a heifer in his mouth; and though the 
legs dragged on the ground, yet he seemed 
to carry her off with the same ease that a 
cat does a rat. He also leaped a broad 
dyke with her without the least difficulty.” 
“I wonder,” remarked Annie, “that 
when the lion is so strong he should be 
contented to live in such • a narrow cage 
without even trying to get out. I should 
think it would be easy enough for him to set 
himself at liberty if he pleased.” 
“You must remember that the lions we 
see in the menageries are almost universally 
either born in captivity or taken while very 
young and brought up in the same narrow 
limits. Thus they never acquire a know¬ 
ledge of their full strength; and very pro¬ 
bably their muscles are not so fully deve¬ 
loped as those of their wild race, who 
have to depend upon their own exertions 
for a supply of food.” 
“ I suppose every thing must fly before 
them in the deserts where they live?” said 
Sidney. 
“Hot invariably,” replied Miss Winston. 
