Many lions have been captured, and their habits and appearance carefully studied. Although there is a difference in color—some being of a yellowish brown, others of a deep red, and a few silvery gray—the general form and appearance of all lions is the same.
The mane is of a dark brown, or of a dusky color, and the tail nearly three feet long, with a bunch of hair at the tip.
The lioness, or female lion, is smaller in every way than the male and has no mane.
It is in the night-time that the lion goes out from his den to seek for food, and his color is so dark and his movements so silent, that his presence is not known even at the distance of a few yards.
These dangerous beasts are no longer found in Europe, although they lived there in numbers many hundred years ago. It is only in the deserts and rocky hills of Asia and Africa that they are met with.
Those who have visited a menagerie, and have seen a lion within the limits of a narrow iron cage, can form no idea of the majesty of the brute when roaming about freely on his native soil.
The voice of the lion is loud and strong. It is likely to strike terror to the bravest heart.
"It consists," says a well-known writer, "at times of a low, deep moaning, repeated five or six times, and ending in scarcely audible sighs; at other times, the forest is startled with loud, deep-toned, solemn roars, increasing in loudness to the third or fourth, and then dying away in sounds like distant thunder."
Directions for Reading.—This lesson should be read a little more slowly than conversation. When we wish to describe any thing, we must give time for those who listen to us to get the meaning of what we say.