LION. 
357 
come across, as a normal rule they kill their own prey. This is always effected by 
cautious stalking, followed by a sudden final rush; and, although it is said that two 
or more lions will occasionally combine to drive game in a given direction, when it 
can be seized by another member of the party, the cats almost invariably pursue 
their prey alone. The general antipathy of the cat tribe to water is proverbial, but 
in the swampy sandarbans of Lower* Bengal, the tiger has often been observed 
swimming from one marshy island to another; and the fishing cat of India largely 
subsists on fresh-water fish captured by itself. 
The Lion (Felis leo). 
Till well on in the present century the title of “ King of Beasts ” was almost 
universally bestowed upon the lion by writers on natural history, on account of its 
generally majestic appearance, and the assumed nobility and fierceness of its 
character. Of late years, however, there has been a strong tendency on the part of 
those who have had the best opportunities of observing the animal in its, native 
haunts, to depose the lion from the proud position it had so long occupied. The 
reasons for this change of view appear to be that when roaming abroad by daylight 
the lion, as Mr. F. C. Selous, the well-known African hunter, informs us, does not 
carry his head so high up as he ought to do in order to be entitled to the epithet 
majestic; while his disposition, instead of being noble and fearless, is considered by 
Livingstone and other writers to be more correctly described as cowardly and mean. 
Although it is impossible to doubt the accuracy of such observations as to its true 
character, yet the magnificent proportions of the animal, coupled with the splendid 
mane decorating the head and chest of the males, render the lion by far the most 
striking in appearance of the whole of the Cat tribe, and, indeed, of all the 
.Carnivores. 
In common with the other large cats of the Old World, the lion has the pupil 
of the eye circular; but it is at once distinguished from all the other members of 
the family by the long hair growing on the head, neck, and shoulders of the males 
to form the flowing mane. This mane varies considerably in size and colour in 
different individuals, but, contrary to what has often been stated, is present in 
Indian as well as in African lions. Frequently, although by no means invariably, 
the long hair of the mane is continued as a fringe down the middle line of the 
belly. Another distinctive characteristic of the male lion is the brush of long 
hair at the tip of the tail. In the middle of this brush of hair, at the very 
extremity of the tail, is a small horny appendage surrounded by a tuft. Much 
writing has been devoted as to the use of this so-called “ thorn ” in the lion’s tail; 
one old story being that it was employed to rouse the animal to fury when the 
tail was lashed against the flanks. 
The hair on the remainder of the body of the male lion, and on the whole of 
both the head and body in the female, is short and close. In the adults of both 
sexes the colour of the body-hair is the well-known yellowish-brown, or tawmy, 
but the tint varies in intensity in different individuals. The long hair of the male’s 
mane may vary from tawny to a blackish-brown. Young lion-cubs are marked 
with transverse dark stripes running down the sides of the body, and likewise by 
