CHAPTER VIII.
ANIMAL LIFE IN THE PRAIRIES OF THE OLD WORLD, CONTINUED:—THE CARNIVORA.
NEXT to man, the most dangerous enemies of the peaceful herbivora are the great Carnivora of the Felidæ genus, in whose first rank zoologists and poets were formerly wont to place the lion.
The so-called “king of animals,” however, has of late years lost much of his prestige. Observant travellers have watched him with a jealous and suspicious eye; intrepid hunters have dared to measure themselves against him, and to beard him in his retreats. Our popular heroes suffer greatly by this close examination. Achilles to his Myrmidons, I suspect, was less godlike than he appeared to the warriors of Troy, who saw him only in the rush and tumult of the battle. Certain it is that the researches of modern science have stripped the lion of most of the splendid attributes with which romance had invested him. Here is a glowing picture:—
“The lion,
Who long has reign’d the terror of the woods,
And dared the boldest huntsman to the combat,
When caught at length within some hidden snare,
With foaming jaws he bites the toils that hold him,
And roars, and rolls his fiery eyes in vain,
While the surrounding swains wound him at pleasure.”—(Nathaniel Rowe.)
But the fact is, that with all his prodigious strength, his terrible teeth and claws, his imposing physiognomy and attitudes, he is an animal more prudent than courageous, and very unlike the highly-coloured portrait which Buffon painted. There have not been wanting well-accredited authorities to accuse him of cowardice; as our own countryman Livingstone, and the Frenchman Delegorgue. According to the latter, he is but a nocturnal robber, whom a ray of light disconcerts, or the barking of dogs, and the shouts of men, women, and children, or a blow from a well-applied whip, will frequently put to flight. Even if provoked, or wounded by man, he will often refuse to fight to the last extremity; or if he accept the challenge, and succeed in harassing his antagonist, he contents himself by breaking a limb or two, by marking his chest with his teeth and nails, after which he leaves him and goes his way. “I have known,” says Delegorgue, “an intrepid hunter who, twice in seven years, had been treated in this fashion by a wounded lion; the first encounter cost him two broken limbs; the second, six fractures, without counting the deep scars left by his claws on several parts of the body. Another, named Vermaës, in his daring, was held for more than a minute by a lion, and got quit with four deep marks of his canine teeth; glorious scars, which he showed to me with an air of lively satisfaction.” Livingstone records a similar adventure which befell himself with a lion at which he had aimed a couple of shots. The wounded animal turned upon his aggressor, harried him, severely injured an arm, and then directed his wrath against one of the doctor’s companions, whom he seized by the shoulder. He intended, in all probability, to administer a similar correction to this individual, when suddenly the two bullets he had received produced their effect, and he fell dead.
These facts prove, at least, that if the lion is not brave he is not malicious, and that the reputation for generosity which he has borne from remote times was not undeserved. It is only in his old age that the lion willingly enters upon a regimen of human flesh, from sheer want of power to obtain any other easily. When a lion is too old, says Livingstone, to provide himself with game by hunting, he frequently enters into the very villages and kills the goats; if, then, a woman or a child go out at night, he makes them equally his prey; and as thenceforth he has no other means of subsistence, he continues to feed himself in this manner. Hence has arisen the saying, that if a lion once tastes human flesh he prefers it to all other kinds. The beasts which attack man are invariably aged lions. When one of them conquers the fear inspired by man so far as to approach a village and seize the goats, the inhabitants invariably say, “His teeth are worn out, and he will soon kill somebody;” and feeling the necessity of defending themselves, they hunt him immediately.
It is generally believed, on the authority of Buffon, that the lion lives in retirement with his mate, that he hunts in solitary dignity, and will suffer no other carnaria, not even one of his own race, to hunt in his own domain. This is an error. Lions, on the contrary, often assemble in a “hunting-party,” four or five in number, when they fly at “high game,” such as a buffalo or a giraffe. M. Vardon saw three lions throw themselves at once on a buffalo which he had just wounded with a musket-shot. “During the day-time, in winter,” says Delegorgue, “you may frequently see troops of lions, which assemble together for the purpose of marking off and driving the game towards the ravines, or wooded glens difficult of access, where some of their companions are posted; these are strict battues, conducted without any noise, the odours of the lions being sufficient to enforce the retreat of the herbivora which they pursue.” The lion himself may, in his turn, be chased and tracked with dogs, like a wild boar, a wolf, or a stag; but most frequently the hunters pursue and shoot him on foot, and this is but a pleasure-jaunt for a man of sang-froid, if a good shot, and well acquainted with the animal’s habits.
We know that the roar of the lion—that is, of the hungry lion—is considered the most terrible of cries, which inspires all the animals, and even man, with unconquerable dread. It appears, however, that man—to say nothing of his dogs—speedily grows accustomed to it, and that the lion, in his turn, cannot be frightened by the barking of the latter. A very curious fact, remarked by Livingstone, is the singular resemblance of the lion’s roar to the cry of the ostrich. “I have carefully inquired,” says the great African traveller, “the opinion of Europeans who have heard both. I have asked them if they could discover the least difference between the roar of the one and the cry of the other. They have all informed me that they could not perceive any, at whatever distance the animal might be placed. The voice of the lion, generally, is deeper than the ostrich’s; but up to the present time I have only been able to distinguish it with certainty because it is heard during the day, and the ostrich’s during the night.”
Lions were formerly common enough in all Southern Asia, Persia, Asia Minor, and even Greece. They long ago disappeared from these countries, and are rarely met with now-a-days in Hindostan. The Indian lion is smaller than his African congener; his mane is shorter and less abundant, and several naturalists signalize him as a distinct species, intermediary between the true African lion and the American puma. There are three varieties of Asiatic lions: the Bengal, the Persian or Arabian, and the maneless lion of Goojerat—the latter confined to a very narrow district. The African “king of beasts” is spread over the entire continent from the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope; but the species includes three kinds: the Barbary lion, with a deep yellowish-brown fur and a full flowing mane; the Senegal, whose fur is of a brighter yellow, and whose mane thinner; and the Cape, of which there are two varieties, one brown, the other yellowish; the former being the fiercer and more powerful animal.
A lion of the largest size measures about eight feet from the nose to the tail, and the tail itself about four feet. The male has usually a thick shaggy mane; the head is large, with rounded ears, and the face covered with short close hair; great strength and muscular force distinguish his conformation; and the tail terminates in a tuft of hair, which is not fully developed until he is six or seven years old.