FIG. 100. Lioness.
The lion ([fig. 99.]) is furnished with a mane, or rather long hair, which covers all his fore-parts, and becomes longer as he advances in age; but the lioness, ([fig. 100.]) however old, is without this appendage. The American animal, which the natives of Peru call Puma, and the Europeans Lion, has no mane, and is smaller, weaker, and more cowardly, than the real lion. It is not impossible that the mildness of the climate in South America might have such influence on the nature of the lion as to strip him of his mane, reduce his size, and repress his courage; but it appears absolutely impossible that this animal, which inhabits the tropical regions only, and to whom Nature, to all appearance, has shut up every avenue to the north, should pass from the southern part of Asia or Africa into America, those continents being divided towards the south by immense seas. From this circumstance it is probable that the puma is not the lion, deriving its origin from those of the old continent and since degenerated, but that he is an animal peculiar to America, like other animals found on the new continent.
When the Europeans first discovered America, the quadrupeds, birds, fishes, insects, plants, and almost every thing appeared to be different from what they had seen before. Of this new world it was therefore necessary to denominate the principal objects. As the names given by the natives were for the most part barbarous and difficult to pronounce or remember, names were borrowed from the European languages, especially from the Spanish and Portugueze. In this dearth of denominations, a small affinity in external appearance, size, or figure, was sufficient to attribute to unknown objects the names of those that were familiar. Hence the doubt, perplexity, and confusion which has considerably increased, since, at the same time that the productions of the new continent were receiving the denominations of those of the old one, plants and animals peculiar to the latter were transporting there in abundance. To remove this obscurity, and to avoid falling into perpetual errors, it is therefore necessary to distinguish carefully what belongs to the one continent from what belongs to the other. Of this distinction I shall shew the necessity in the next article, where I shall enumerate not only the animals which are natives of America, but those which have been carried thither.
M. de la Condamine, whose testimony deserves our full confidence, says expressly, that he does not know whether the American animal which the Spaniards call Lion, and the natives of Quito, Puma, deserves the name of Lion; he adds, that it is much smaller than the African lion, and that the male has no mane. Frezier also says, that the animals called lions in Peru are very different from those of Africa; that they avoid the sight of man, and commit no havock but among the cattle; and he further remarks that their heads bear a strong resemblance to the heads of both the wolf and the tiger, and have tails shorter than that of either. In more ancient relations, we are told that the lions of America by no means resemble those of Africa; that they have neither their size, nor fierceness, nor colour; that they are neither red, nor yellow, nor grey; that they have no mane, and that they have a custom of climbing up trees. Differing, then, from the lion in size, colour, form of the head, length of the tail, want of the mane, and lastly, in natural habits, no longer ought the Puma of America to be confounded with the real lion of Africa or Asia.
Though this noble animal inhabits only the hottest regions, yet he will live, and, with care, might even breed in temperate ones. Gesner mentions that lions were brought forth in the menagerie of Florence; and Willoughby tells us, that at Naples, a lioness which had been confined with a lion, produced five whelps at one litter. Such examples are rare, but if true, they prove that lions are not absolutely averse to mild climates. At present there are none of them in the southern parts of Europe; so early as the days of Homer, there were no lions in Peloponnesus, yet they existed in Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, in the time of Aristotle. It is, therefore, evident that in all ages they have given the preference to the hottest climates; that they seldom resided in temperate ones, and never in the frozen regions of the north. The naturalists above quoted, though they mention lions being brought forth in Florence and Naples, are silent as to the time of gestation in the lioness, the size of the young, when whelped, and the degrees of their growth. Ælian says she goes only two months, while Philostratus and Edward Wotten affirm it to be six. I think the latter opinion is nearest the truth, because the lion is an animal of great magnitude, and in general the time of gestation is longer among the large than the small species. Thus it is also with the growth of the body. Both ancients and moderns allow that the new-born lion is not bigger than the weasel, that is from six to seven inches long; if so, several years must elapse before he can increase to eight or nine feet. It is also said that they cannot walk before they are two months old. But, without giving entire credit to these assertions, we may with probability presume, from the largeness of the size, that he is three or four years in acquiring his full growth, and that he consequently lives to about the age of twenty-five. The Sieur de St. Martin, master of the bull-fights at Paris, who willingly communicated to me the observations he had made upon the lions which he reared, assured me that he has kept lions for fifteen or sixteen years, and that he does not believe they live above the age of twenty or twenty-two. But it must be evident the want of exercise, constraint, and irksomeness of situation to those which are in confinement, must impair health and shorten life.
In two different parts of his treatise on animals, Aristotle states that the lioness produces five or six whelps at her first litter, four or five at the second, three or four at the third, two or three at the fourth, and one or two at the fifth, and after which she becomes barren. This assertion is ungrounded, since in all animals the first and last litters are always the least numerous. This philosopher erred also, as well as all the naturalists that came after him, in maintaining that the lioness had but two nipples, it being a certain and well known fact that she has four, as may be known by simple inspection. He likewise asserts that the lion, bear, and fox, are unformed at their birth; but it is now known that these animals are brought forth as perfect as any other, and that their members are distinct and developed. He says too that the lions copulate in a backward disposition; but from a bare inspection it is demonstrable that they engender in the same manner as other quadrupeds. I have noticed these errors in Aristotle minutely, as the authority of such a great man has misled all authors who have since given the history of animals. His assertion also, that the neck of the lion contains but one rigid and inflexible bone, has been contradicted by experience; for in all quadrupeds, without exception, and even in man, the neck is composed of seven vertebræ; and it is also another certain fact, that in general, carnivorous animals have a much shorter neck than granivorous, and especially than the ruminating ones. It is also stated by Aristotle, that the bones of lions have neither cavity nor marrow; that they are as hard as flint, and possess the property of striking fire by friction; but such errors ought not to have been repeated by Kolbe, nor handed down to posterity, since even in the days of Aristotle they were ridiculed by Epicurus.
The lion is particularly furious when rouzed by love. A female when in season will have eight or ten males in her train, who fight most bloody battles, till one of them becomes victorious over the rest. She brings forth in spring, and does not produce more than once a year, which also proves that she is employed for some months in tending and suckling her young, and consequently the time required for their first growth, while they are in need of the assistance of their dam, must at least be some months. In this animal all the passions, even of the most gentle kind, are in excess. The attachment of the lioness to her young is astonishingly great; though naturally less strong and courageous than the lion, she becomes terrible when she has young. She then makes her incursions without fear; attacks indiscriminately men and animals, destroys without distinction, loads herself with the spoil, and carries it home to her whelps, whom she accustoms betimes to blood and slaughter. She usually brings forth in the most retired and inaccessible places, and when afraid of having her retreat discovered, she hides her tracks by traversing back the ground, or brushing them out with her tail. She sometimes also, when her apprehensions are great, transports them to a different place, and if obstructed, she defends them with a determined fury, and fights to the last extremity.