2o8 
EASTERN ETHIOPIA 
XVI 
hobble. Later in the clay the donkey did not appear 
to be well and was re-examined : the top of the animal’s 
head appeared as if it consisted of skin only ; no bone 
could be felt. The lion had smitten the head of the 
donkey so forcibly, and broken it in, that it appeared to 
be devoid of bone : later in the day the donkey was 
shot. 
Lions are shy of a tethered animal if they see the 
rope. Drake-Brockman, in his account of the Mammals 
of Somaliland (1910), refers to a wary lion which he 
tried to entice within the range of his rifle on three 
successive nights. At last, in order to enable the lion 
to gorge himself, so that he could be more easily 
followed, a donkey was tied to a tree. In the middle 
of the night the hunter was disturbed by much noise 
and dust; amidst the dust the donkey was “standing 
under the wall of the zareba with a small uprooted 
tree by his side.” 
In the morning the footprints of the lion were found 
round the place where the donkey had been tied to 
the tree, which it pulled up in its fright and dragged to 
camp. The sand-marks indicated that the lion had not 
merely walked round and round the donkey, but had 
crouched within a few yards of him and whisked the 
sand with his tail. 
Schillings, who had excellent opportunities of ob¬ 
serving the manner in which a lion kills, states that it 
creeps up towards its prey and springs upon and kills it 
with a bite on the back of the neck. 
It is c]^uite certain that when lions attack human 
beings they do not kill them “on the spot,” as the 
phrase goes, unless they seize them by the head ; then 
death is instantaneous. All who have read Patterson’s 
thrilling account of the Man-Eaters of Tsavo, will 
remember that some of the victims, even after they 
had been dragged through the thorn bushes forming 
the boma, could be heard shouting whilst in the grip of 
the lion. 
