HOW LIONS KILL GAME 
117 
through weakness and old age and consequent bluntness of 
teeth and claws are not able to kill game for themselves, or to 
hold their own with their fellows in lighting for their share of 
the meat killed otherwise, and therefore are obliged to seek 
sustenance from other sources. These will hunt tame dogs or 
any smaller easily killed game, and even become man-eaters if 
their lot is cast near country inhabited by human beings. It is 
always regarded as a warning to be on the look-out for such 
beasts if near a pan of water one finds the remains of tortoises 
devoured by lions, who only in extreme cases would resort to 
such mean vermin to sustain their existence. Naturally defence¬ 
less native women and children fall an easy prey to such animals, 
when they are digging for edible roots in the bush, an occupa¬ 
tion we frequently found them employed in along the river 
banks. 
A full grown young lion, on the other hand, kills large game 
with surprising neatness and despatch if once he can get a fair 
spring at the haunches. The favourite position is to insert the 
claws of his hind feet deep into the rump of an animal, his 
left front paw under the shoulder, and with his teeth fixed firmly 
transversely into the base of the neck to give a wrench at the 
horns or head of his prey with the other paw, which fractures the 
neck with a single effort so cleanly that the beast generally falls 
dead with its head beneath the shoulder. This feat, performed 
by a vigorous lion, hardly causes the spilling of a drop of blood, 
as I can testify to my cost, from more than once having had 
some of my cattle killed in this manner. There was not a tear 
on the bodies of these cattle, only the holes where the claws had 
been fixed in the rump and shoulder, and those made by the 
teeth in the neck perforating like shot holes right into the 
vertebrae. The sable, antelope, and the Harris buck, however, he 
dares not attack from behind, for, with their backward sweeping 
horns, they are able to make things lively for any lion foolish 
enough to make the attempt. These, and hornless game such 
as the quagga, they seize in front by the nose, and drag down to 
destruction—while the oryx antelope, with his straight horns 
