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FOREST AND STREAM 
March i, 1913 
Lion Hunting in Africa 
By DR. WILLIAM S. RAINSFORD, 
In Charge of the Third African Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History 
P erhaps some notes on lion shooting, and 
East African lions generally, may be of 
interest to the readers of Forest and 
Stream. Let me then, by way of making mat¬ 
ters clear, try and give some idea of the features 
of this country, or rather that part of it—Mt. 
Elgon, B. E. A.—in which I now am, and which 
supplies the largest and blackest-maned lions in 
Africa. Lions are, of course, subject to such 
increasing and universal persecution, that their 
numbers are being rapidly reduced. Since they 
are among the most cunning of wild beasts, 
they are learning to take care of themselves, 
and bringing them to bay nowadays, at least in 
a legitimate manner, is not by any means as 
easy as it was some three or four years ago. 
Schillings, of “Flashlight and Rifle” fame, 
trapped in steel traps, and with little difficulty, 
a large number, though, by the way, he says 
nothing of this in the book. At present, though 
many farmers have traps, you seldom hear of 
a lion being caught in one. 
Again, not long ago, where I am now, lions 
were careless in their hours of return to reed 
bed or jungle, after the night’s hunting. They 
would often dawdle homeward, lion, lioness and 
cubs, enjoying themselves by the way, waiting 
in some sunny spot, or basking on an ant hill, 
till the morning sun dried off for them the 
heavy night dew. This was the hunter’s op¬ 
portunity. You caught them napping before 
they could make the shelter of the papyrus 
swamp, or the heavy river bottom. They go 
home much earlier now. 
After the rains, say in July, August and 
September, the grass is so rank in most good 
game country (and it is in such country that 
lions are found) that there is not such need for 
caution on the lion’s part. Then it is that 
usually the lions cub. The yellowing herbage 
corresponds exactly with their tawny coats. 
They can see long before they are seen. One 
glimpse of a yellow back or pointed ear you 
may catch if you are lucky; but in a moment 
these sink into and are admirably hidden by 
the great waving grass harvest that covers all 
the land. Then it is that a pack of trained dogs 
can get their deadly work in. Grass is no pro¬ 
tection from the dog. Lioness and young lions 
are then specially easy to bring to bay. The 
barking pack surround the confused beasts, and 
if there be a number of dogs, there is little 
danger to the pack, and scarcely any at all to 
the hunter, who can ride up at leisure and shoot 
at his leisure. 
Lately lions have been hunted in this way 
by Paul Rainey. He got aS many as seventeen 
in one day, I am told. But, Mr. Rainey was 
not the first to adopt the dog pack. Dutchmen 
have always, when they were able, pursued this 
method. They have usually a pack of mongrels 
round their shambus. These admirably serve 
their masters. Accompanied by them, there is 
little danger of stumbling on a lion—always 
an extremely risky thing to do—because the 
pack give ample warning of his presence. And 
when, as is usual, one or two of the lot will 
take and follow a lion spoor, the game is 
doomed. One Dutch farmer close to Mount 
Elgon has killed sixty lions with dogs in two 
years, and no one ever heard of a Dutchman 
being hurt. This method of lion hunting has 
lately given rise to much discussion, and the 
advocates of it and those against have heartily 
abused each other. 
From the sportsman’s point of view it is 
dirty work. The fine beast has no chance. But 
let it be remembered in all fairness, that the 
sportsman is not the only one or Indeed the 
chief one to be considered when it is a question 
of killing lions. The lion is a dangerous and 
exceedingly destructive kind of vermin. That 
is the settler’s view of his case. He, the 
settler, is here to make a living, and a hardly 
earned living at that. He cannot lease his 
farm and spend his precious time in scouring 
the country, searching for a beast that is the 
ijost elusive of all wild animals. He kills game 
near his farm for his family and native boys. 
The game disappears, but his bullocks, sheep, 
pigs, goats, remain and increase. Failing the 
game, the lion takes to the herds, sometimes 
to the black boys. That is the situation. 
Naturally anyone—any method—that can free a 
neighborhood of lions is approved by the 
settler. He will poison a carcass, set a trap, or 
welcome Mr. Rainey and his pack—anything to 
rid him of the dangerous vermin; and further¬ 
more, a good lion skin will fetch, even in 
Africa, £10. That is the price of a milch cow. 
The sportsman’s point of view is equally 
capable of definition. Men, he says, will come 
from far and incidentally will spend much 
money in the country on the chance of secur¬ 
ing a lion by sportsmanlike methods. The East 
African lion is the biggest and darkest lion in 
the world. Destroy this fine beast, say they, 
and you cut off an important source of income 
from a new colony that needs it. You discour¬ 
age the very class of man you should cater for. 
From the sportsman’s point of view all this 
is true. But this beautiful country, this tem¬ 
perate climate (for the tropics), this rich red 
soil that can in many places be made to yield 
two crops a year, is no longer chiefly a hunter’s 
paradise. It is fast becoming a successful 
colony. It can no longer be treated either as 
a native reserve, or a game preserve. From it 
therefore the lion must go, as already he has 
gone completely from the far less favored lands 
of Cape Colony. 
Lions then, hereabouts, are no longer to be 
found, even occasionally, as I found them five 
years ago, in bands of from fifteen to five, 
sauntering homeward at 8 o’clock in the morn¬ 
ing sunshine—uttering now and then little low, 
satisfied family grunts that served admirably 
to guide one in a stealthy approach. No! they 
have to be hunted up day after day, evening 
after evening, or caught very early in the 
morning taking a last mouthful from the zebra 
or kongoni kill they happen to have secured in 
the very late hours of the night. So I got my 
first two lions this trip; and how I got my 
third one I shall now tell; 
By the middle of December the face of the 
land in British East Africa has changed—al¬ 
most all the long grass has vanished. Burned 
off by native and settler, so that when the rain 
comes in March or April, the new springing 
verdure may grow in full strength and pro¬ 
vide pasturage for flock and game. The land is 
brown. Brownness relieved by the vivid green 
shoots of the stunted mimmosa thorn trees, 
scattered everywhere, and by patches of up¬ 
lands that, having caught occasional rains in 
November, are already a tender green. 
In great stretches of this brown burnt land 
the swampy places still struggle hard to hold 
their moisture. Here the game herds come for 
water, and in them and near them lurk the lions 
to kill. The dampness of the swamp land and 
of the matted river bottoms have baffled the 
grass fires that sweep the country, and so in 
NATIVES SPEARING A LION. 
Photograph by Mr. Cherry Kearton. Published by permission. 
