thunder, and being re-echoed by the rocks and mountains, appals the whole race of animals, and puts them to a sudden flight: he frequently varies his voice into a hideous scream or yell. He is supposed to be destitute of scent, and to hunt by the eye alone. Kolben says, "that when he comes up to his prey, he always knocks it down dead, and seldom bites it until the mortal blow be given; this blow he generally accompanies with a tremendous roar."

The lion is commonly said to devour as much as will serve him for three or four days, and when satiated with food, to remain in his den for that time. His teeth are so strong that he breaks the bones of his prey with perfect ease, and often swallows them with the flesh. In confinement he is usually allowed about four pounds of raw flesh daily. The tongue, as in other animals of the cat kind, is furnished with reversed prickles, so large and strong as to be capable of lacerating the skin. The formation of his eye enables him to see his prey in the dark; his sensitive whiskers and cushioned foot enable him to creep upon it unper

ceived. The great force with which he springs upon his victim, the powerful paw, armed with formidable claws, with which he strikes it, his teeth, his jaw, and prickly tongue, all enable him to satisfy his sanguinary habits, and render him the terror of the wilderness. Moffat thus relates an attack from one of these formidable creatures, which he witnessed while in Africa :

"At Sitlagole river we halted in the afternoon, and allowed our oxen to graze on a rising bank opposite our waggons, and somewhat farther than a gun-shot from them. Having but just halted, and not having loosed a gun, we were taken by surprise by an enormous lion, which rushed out from a neighbouring thicket, approached within ten yards of the oxen, and bounding on one of my best, killed him in a moment, by sending his teeth through the vertebræ of the neck; then, with his fore-feet on the carcase, he looked and roared at us, who were all in a scuffle to loosen our guns, and attack his majesty. Two of our number discharged their muskets, and a ball whistling past his ear, induced him to retire to the thicket

from whence he came, leaving the meat behind him."

The lion will sometimes spring upon the back of a giraffe, and fixing his sharp claws in the shoulders, gnaw away until he reaches the vertebræ of the neck, when both fall; and oftentimes the lion is considerably injured. "Among the giraffes we shot," says Moffat, "the healed wounds of the lion's claws on the shoulders, and marks of his teeth on the back of the neck, gave us ocular demonstration that two of them had carried the monarch of the forests on their backs, and yet come off triumphant. Many years ago a boy was returning to his village, and having turned aside to a fountain to drink, lay down on the bank and fell asleep. Being awoke by the piercing rays of the sun, he saw through the bush behind which he lay a giraffe browsing at ease on the tender shoots of a camel thorn-tree (Acacia Giraffe); it was a stiff tree, about twelve feet high, with a flat bushy top; to his great horror, he then observed a lion creeping like a cat, only a dozen yards from him, preparing to pounce upon his

prey. The lion eyed the giraffe for a few moments, his body gave a shake, and he bounded into the air to seize the head of the animal, which instantly turned its stately neck, and the lion missing his grasp, fell on his back in the centre of the mass of thorns, like spikes, and the giraffe bounded over the plain. The boy instantly followed the example, expecting, as a matter of course, that the enraged lion would soon find his way to the earth. Some time afterwards the people of the village, who seldom visited that spot, saw the eagles hovering in the air; and as it is almost always a certain sign that the lion has killed game, or some animal is dead, they went to the place and sought in vain, till, coming under the lee of the tree, their olfactory nerves directed them to where the lion lay dead in his thorny bed. I still found some of his bones under the tree, and hair on its branches, to convince me of what I scarcely could have credited."

One of the superstitions among the Bushmen at the Cape is, that a lion's heart carried in procession will cause the rain to fall after any great

drought. An expedition sets forth, and after undergoing great peril, a lion is killed. This is no sooner done than the carcase is cut up for roasting or boiling; a feast is made by the party, who then return in triumph, bearing the lion's heart on a pole, and singing a rude song in chorus. A fire is then kindled on the top of a hill, and after preparing certain medicines, the rain-maker stretches out his hands, and commands the clouds to draw near, threatening, if they disobey, that they shall feel his anger: the deluded populace believe all this, and wonder the rains do not fall.

The "rain-maker" is, however, always cunning enough to attribute the "hard-heartedness" of the clouds to some cause or other; in one instance, an European traveller was glad to make a hasty retreat, the rain-maker having attributed his want of success to a bag of salt, which was contained in this gentleman's baggage waggon.

The most common and favourite prey of the lion is the various species of deer and antelope which abound in the plains of Africa and jungles of India. The zebra and quagga, bullock and