IMMENSE BOUNDS. 
29 
had lain to where he alighted/’ says Delegorgue, 
“ measured eighteen* of my paces/’ and elsewhere 
the same author, when speaking of another of those 
beasts, accidentally disturbed by him from its 
slumbers, informs us :—“ He rose, gathered himself 
up, and bounded forward (presenting to us his 
broadside), to alight at fifteen paces distance, when he 
bounded again. He seemed to fly. His mane re¬ 
sembled a pair of wings ; but I and my companions 
were so confounded and amazed at the sight, as to 
put all thoughts of firing out of our heads. The 
rapidity of the animal’s bounds would, indeed, have 
rendered the attempt useless—an arrow from the 
bow, or the falcon when stooping on the quarry, 
are not more rapid in their flight.” 
The height to which the lion can leap is also very 
great—otherwise, why are the pit-falls in Algeria 
for the capture of this animal, as Gerard tells us is 
the case, ten metres in depth. Moffatt, indeed, 
speaks of the beast jumping on to a rock ten to twelve 
feet in altitude; and Thomson, when describing 
a lion-hunt, says :— 66 He (the lion) bounded over 
the adjacent thicket like a cat over a foot-stool, 
clearing brake and bushes twelve or fifteen feet high 
as readily as if they had been tufts of grass.” Dele- 
gorgue’s evidence is to the like effect. After telling 
us that he had one evening killed a Cato blebas 
* I can quite credit Delegorgue’s statement as to the extent of 
ground covered by the lion in its bound; the rather as, with people 
generally—such at least is the case in Sweden—the pace usually em¬ 
braces little more than two feet. Moreover, if I mistake not, a 
horse in England has been known to leap a rivulet thirty-four feet 
broad. 
