SELF-MUTILATION. 
39 
claws are turned against its own person; it crushes 
its paws, and it breaks its talons, as if it wished to 
be the author of its own annihilation. It is a verit¬ 
able suicide, but which the weapons provided by 
Nature do not permit it to consummate.” 
The fact that the lion, when, disabled by wounds, 
it is prevented from either attacking or fleeing 
from its enemies, mutilates itself in the manner de¬ 
scribed above, is not, I believe, uncommon. Sir 
Samuel Baker, indeed, records an instance to this 
effect that came under his own eye; for when de¬ 
scribing (as will hereafter be seen) the dying moments 
of a lioness, he says :—“ Occasionally in her rage 
she bit her own paws violently, and then struck 
and clawed the ground.”* 
# Something of the kind described by Delegorgue and Sir Samuel 
Baker occurs, I take it, with other beasts besides the lion in their 
death-struggles. Once indeed, I myself saw a large and badly 
wounded bear rear itself up on its hind legs against a young spruce 
pine, which it very deeply scored with its fangs ; and when at a dis¬ 
tance of some thirty or forty paces I killed it whilst in that posi¬ 
tion.— Ed. 
