As far as my experience goes, I have never known an instance of a lion carrying its prey raised from the ground. Even such small and light animals as goats, impala antelopes, and young wart-hogs are always held by the head or neck, and dragged along the ground at the side of the lion. When a heavy animal like a horse or an ox is dragged, it is always held by the neck. I simply cannot believe in the possibility of a lion’s springing over a palisade and carrying the carcase of an ox with him. When lions break into cattle kraals at night, they never or very seldom spring over the fence even when it is a low one, but work their way through the bottom of the fence. They will sometimes walk round and round a stockaded kraal, that one would have expected them to leap over at once without difficulty, and finally effect an entrance by forcing two poles apart and squeezing through. If suddenly disturbed or fired at at night whilst inside a kraal, they will often spring over the fence in their hurry to get out.
My best lion
The wild lion of Southern Africa seldom presents the majestic appearance of the picture-book animal, because as a rule he does not carry a long shaggy mane, like the lions one often sees in menageries. Occasionally, however, one sees a wild lion with a fine full dark mane, and then he is a magnificent animal, and one of the noblest prizes that can fall to the sportsman’s rifle. I have been much struck by the beauty of the manes of many of the lions shot by Colonel Arthur Paget, Lord Wolverton, Lord Delamere and other sportsmen in Somaliland, and I think there can be no doubt that in that part of Africa the lions grow better manes on an average than in South Africa. The dark parts are, too, of a deeper black. But I have not yet seen a lion’s skin from Somaliland with so full a mane as in the three best skins I have seen from South Africa. None of these three splendid animals were, alas! shot by myself. One was killed by the natives in Matabeleland and its skin given me by Lo Bengula, and I still have it in my possession; the second was killed at the Umfuli river in Mashonaland by my friend Cornelis van Rooyen, and the third two years ago within a few miles of the same spot by Hans Lee, the young Boer hunter who accompanied Lord Randolph Churchill on his recent expedition to South Africa.
Although I have seen a very large number of skins of wild lions, I have never yet seen one with long hair growing on the belly as is so common in menagerie lions and invariable in the picture-book animal. A wild lion with a very fine mane will have a tuft of long hair in the arm-pit, another on the elbow, and in some cases a tuft in the flank, but the hair of the belly is always short and close, as on the rest of the body. In the great majority of cases the mane of the wild lion is simply a ruff round the neck with an extension down the back between the shoulders. In very rare and exceptional cases the angle formed between the end of this extension and the point of the shoulder is covered with mane, as it is very commonly in the menagerie lion; but, as a rule, the whole shoulder of the wild lion is devoid of mane. Very often a large heavy full-grown male lion, a splendid animal in strength and symmetry, will have scarcely any mane at all, and his skin is not then a handsome trophy.
There are very few authentic statistics regarding the weight of lions, and I am unfortunately not able to cast much light on this subject. Sir Samuel Baker, in ‘Wild Beasts and their Ways,’ gives no actual statistics regarding the weight of any particular lions, but appears to think that full-grown well-fed males of this species would on an average weigh from five to six hundred pounds. Not long ago a question was asked at my suggestion through the columns of the ‘Field’ newspaper on this very subject, but with one exception no satisfactory information was elicited. The exception to which I refer was a communication from Mr. William Yellowly, of South Shields, and ran as follows:—
In reply to the query in last week’s issue of the ‘Field’ anent the weight of lions, I beg to state that a fine black-maned lion, which died in the late Mrs. Edmond’s menagerie at Warrington on February 18, 1875, was sent to me the next day. The following measurements before skinning will give an idea of its magnificent proportions: Length from nose to root of tail, 6 ft. 10 ins.; from nose to tip of tail, 10 ft.; girth behind shoulder, 4 ft. 9 ins.; girth of upper arm, 1 ft. 10 ins.; height at shoulder 3 ft. 6 ins.; and its dead weight was 31 stone or 434 lbs.
These statistics appear to me to be perfectly reliable, and I regard them as the carefully taken weight and measurements of a large well-fed menagerie lion. How the measurement for length was taken from nose to tip of tail I do not know, but I should fancy along the curves of the head and back, which would make it an inch or two more than if it had been taken in a perfectly straight line between two pegs, one driven into the ground at the nose, and the other at the extremity of the tail of the dead animal. I will now give the few statistics regarding the weight and measurements of wild lions which I can vouch for as being authentic.
Many years ago a lion was shot one night at Kati in Western Matabeleland inside the cattle kraal, where it had killed an ox, and the next morning early the carcase was placed on the large scale used for weighing ivory, which stood under the verandah of one of the traders’ houses at only a few yards distance from the cattle kraal. This lion weighed 376 lbs.; it was a large full-grown animal, but in low condition.
In 1887 a lion, shot by myself and friends close to our waggon, was carried into camp and carefully weighed, and was found to turn the scale at 385 lbs. This was a fine animal in good condition but with no fat about him, and my impression at the time was that he would have grown bigger and heavier, as his mane was short, and did not appear to have reached its full length and beauty.