The Lion. 3 
roaring, and fatiguing himself by vainly attempting to 
escape ; till, at last, he becomes exhausted, and so tame 
as to permit his captors to put ropes round him, and 
drag him out. He is then put into a cage, and removed 
in a kind of waggon, wherever his captors may wish to 
take him. 
The generosity of the Lion has been much extolled • 
but the tales related of it appear to have had no other 
foundation than the fact, that, like many other beasts, 
when gorged with food he will not attack a man. A 
great amount of courage has also been so generally 
ascribed to him that the expression " as brave as a 
Lion," has become proverbial, and he has been regarded 
as a sort of symbol of that quality. For this respectable 
character, the Lion is no doubt mainly indebted to his 
possession of a mane, and to the boldness of appearance 
produced by his carrying his head elevated ; for in all 
other respects he is a genuine cat, with neither more 
nor less courage than belongs to the cats in general. As 
the Lion belongs to the cat tribe, his eyes are incapable 
of bearing a strong light; it is therefore generally in 
the night that he prowls about for prey, and when the 
sun shines in his face, he becomes confused and almost 
blinded. Lion hunters are aware of this fact. In the 
day-time they always consider themselves safe, so long 
as they have the sun on their backs. In the night, 
a fire has nearly the same effect; and travellers in 
Africa and the deserts of Arabia can generally protect 
themselves from Lions and Tigers by making a large 
I fire near their sleeping-place. The strength of the 
African species is so great that he has been known to 
carry away a # T oung heifer, and leap a ditch with it in 
his mouth. The power that man may acquire over this 
animal has been often shown in the exhibitions of Van 
Amburgh, Carter, and others ; but the attachment which 
Lions sometimes form for- their keepers, was never more 
strongly exemplified than in the following anecdote. 
M. Felix, the keeper of the animals in Paris, some 
years ago, brought two Lions, a male and female, to the 
national menagerie. About the beginning of the follow- 
ing June he was taken ill, and could no longer attend 
