210 
EASTERN ETHIOPIA 
XVI 
his property with barbed wire; this costs with the 
posts about £40 per mile. Zebras run together often 
in large herds, and if it happens that a lion, lioness, 
and family are on the prowl, the herd becomes alarmed 
when these huge cats are in the vicinity and often 
stampedes. If in the course of their mad rush they 
come against any barbed wire, it will be broken down 
for many yards. One settler explained to me that 
lions find the wire useful, for when the panic-stricken 
zebras rush the wire, one or more of the animals may be 
entangled in the loose ends and fall an easy prey. 
The settlers find strychnia an extremely useful 
poison for destroying lions. I find that they adopt 
the following method :— 
A zebra is shot and the carcase is partly flayed, and 
the exposed fleshy part of the carcase has a few grains 
of strychnia spread upon it. The results are excellent. 
In one year a settler destroyed at least seventeen 
lions : the carcases of nine were found near the bait 
and the skeletons of the remainder in adjacent parts of 
the farm after the grass had been fired. In addition, he 
poisoned numerous leopards and hya3nas. 
It is a fact worth remembering, in poisoning meat 
with strychnia, not to put much of the drug on the 
carcase. If the lion gets too much strychnia he 
will vomit and thus, getting rid of the drug, escape 
death. 
From the earliest times lions have been a terror to 
herdsmen. A representation of two lions killing an ox 
was emblazoned on the noble shield made by Vulcan, at 
the request of Thetis, for Achilles: 
Two lions rushing from the wood appear’d, 
And seized a bull, the master of the herd. 
The presence of lions in the neighbourhood of 
civilised communities is a source of much unpleasant 
excitement and occasionally terror. Some years ago, 
a man-eating lion became notorious for taking patients 
