African Nature Notes and Reminiscences

by Frederick Courteney Selous

CHAPTER V

NOTES ON THE LION (concluded)

Method of opening a carcase—Removal of paunch and entrails—Lions skilful butchers—Paunch and entrails not usually eaten—Lions not bone-eaters—Will eat putrid meat—Will sometimes devour their own kind—Number of cubs at birth—Check on inordinate increase of carnivorous animals—The lion's roar—Diversity of opinion concerning its power—Probable explanation—Volume of sound when several lions roar in unison—A nerve-shaking experience—Lions silent when approaching their prey—Roar after killing—And in answer to one another—Lions only roar freely in undisturbed districts—Lions essentially game-killers—But change their habits with circumstances—Killing lions with spear and shield—Bambaleli's splendid courage—Lions killed by Bushmen with poisoned arrows—Behaviour of domestic animals in the presence of lions—Cattle sometimes terrified, at other times show no fear.

When once a lion or lions have killed an animal they almost always open the carcase at the point where the skin is thinnest, that is, in the flank just in front of where the thigh joins the belly. They then at once tear off and eat this thin skin and the flesh attached to it, and all the skin and flesh covering the paunch and entrails, which latter they then proceed to remove from the carcase. The neatness and cleanliness with which lions can take the inside out of an animal they have just killed has always struck me as little short of marvellous. Every one who has had to do much cutting up of large animals knows how easy it is to tear the skin of the paunch and get some of its contents on the meat, and African natives are nearly always very clumsy and dirty in this respect. Lions, however, are able to remove the paunch and entrails from the carcase of a large animal as skilfully as a trained butcher. The offal itself is dragged away to a distance of ten yards or so, and then covered with earth or grass, which is scratched up and thrown over it. As a rule, lions certainly do not eat the paunch and entrails of any animals which they may kill, but I once had occasion to search through a refuse-heap left by a party of lions near the carcase of a buffalo they had killed, in the hope of finding some scavenger beetles of a rare species, and I found that it contained nothing but vegetable matter—the contents of the buffalo's stomach. If the lions had not eaten the entrails and the covering of the paunch, I do not know what had become of them. This refuse-heap as usual had been thickly covered with earth and grass, which had been scratched up from all around it. Once the inside of a carcase has been removed, the liver, kidneys, heart, and lungs are eaten, with all the fat adhering to them. Then the carcase is again torn open at the anus, and the soft meat of the buttocks is devoured in great lumps, which are swallowed whole with the skin attached. No lion will ever scrunch up heavy bones like a hyæna, but should he kill an animal in good condition, he will swallow all the comparatively soft bones of the brisket, and also gnaw off the ends of all the rib-bones. The idea that lions will not eat the flesh of any animal which they have not killed themselves is quite erroneous. It would, indeed, be more correct to say that as long as lions can find dead animals to eat, they will not take the trouble to hunt. Nor are they at all particular as to the condition of any carcase they may chance to come across. As long as there is any meat left on it, they will eat it, and I have known lions to remain for days in the neighbourhood of the putrid carcases of elephants, on which they fed nightly, in preference to hunting for fresh meat, although game of all kinds was plentiful in the neighbourhood. Two instances of lions eating the flesh of one of their own kind have come under my personal observation, and although such a practice is undoubtedly of unusual occurrence, yet I should imagine that, provided hunger and opportunity were both present, there are few lions that would disdain a meal off the carcase of an individual of their own species.

Although I am informed that lionesses in captivity often give birth to four, and sometimes to as many as five or six cubs, in the wild state the usual number is certainly three, and of these a large number, for some reason which has never been ascertained, never reach maturity, for it is seldom that lionesses are met with accompanied by more than two large cubs, and they often only rear one.

It is an axiom that all birds and mammals living in countries where the climatic conditions are favourable, and where they have no enemies, will increase in numbers up to the limit of the food-supply available for them. When the ground becomes overstocked, diseases break out, which only the strongest and healthiest animals are able to resist, and these survivors perpetuate the race, which will once more increase and multiply up to a certain point. But what is it that checks the inordinate increase of carnivorous animals? They certainly do not go on increasing in numbers up to the limit of their food-supply, otherwise there are many parts of Africa in which, before the advent of the white man, lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyænas, and wild dogs, not to mention all the smaller carnivora, would have increased to such an extent that they would gradually have denuded the country of all herbivorous animals, and would then have died in large numbers themselves, till in the end there would have been few animals of any kind left. But such catastrophes never occur. Wherever, before the advent of the white man, game was very plentiful in Africa, lions and all other carnivorous animals were also numerous, but the meat-eaters never increased to such an extent as to reduce the numbers of the grass-eaters on which they preyed. Let us take the Pungwe district in South-East Africa for example. In 1891 I found the country both east and west of the Pungwe river teeming with game, particularly buffaloes and zebras, the favourite food of the lion. Up to that time no Europeans had ever hunted or in any way disturbed the wild beasts in that country, and the few scattered natives living there were timid and ill armed, and certainly never killed or interfered with lions, which animals therefore were absolutely without enemies. As this state of things must have endured for centuries, or more probably for untold thousands, of years, why had not the lions and other carnivorous animals, living as they had been doing in such a well-stocked preserve, increased up to the limit of their food-supply? They certainly had not done so up to 1891, the year the white man first entered the country, and at once of course changed all the natural conditions. Many lions certainly seem to die in early cubhood, and this may be a provision of nature to check their inordinate increase; but that neither they nor any other species of carnivorous animal in Africa ever become so numerous, under the most favourable conditions, as to seriously diminish the numbers of the animals on which they prey is a well-ascertained fact.

Lionesses, I believe, only give birth to cubs at long intervals, for although I have often seen young lions and lionesses with their mothers which must have been at least two years old, I have never seen a lioness accompanied by cubs of different ages.

One of the most distinguishing characteristics of the lion, and the one which perhaps differentiates it more than anything else from all other members of the cat tribe, is its roar. During more than twenty years spent in hunting and pioneering in the African wilderness, I have heard lions roaring under all sorts of conditions: in the stillness of frosty winter nights, when the camp fire blazed merrily, and as each fresh log was thrown upon it sent up showers of sparks towards the cloudless, star-decked sky; or amidst the crashing thunder-peals and blinding flashes of lightning of a stormy night during the rainy season, when it was sometimes quite impossible to keep a fire alight at all. On such a night, when sitting wet and cold amongst one's Kafir boys, huddled up beneath the scanty shelter of a few boughs (for I never carried a tent with me in South Africa), the roaring of lions is not altogether a reassuring sound.

On a still night the roaring of lions can be heard at a very great distance, and should a party of these animals roar loudly quite a mile away, I think most people would imagine that they were within one hundred yards. One reason, I think, for the diversity of opinion as to the power and volume of the lion's roar is, that very few people have ever really heard several lions roaring together quite close to them, although they may believe they have done so. In 1891, and again in 1892, I spent some weeks travelling and hunting in the country between Lake Sungwe and the Pungwe river, in South-East Africa, and there was scarcely a night on both those trips when lions were not heard roaring, often as many as three, and once four, different troops of these animals appearing to be answering one another from different points of the compass; but although on the second trip—I was alone in 1891—my companions, who had not had much experience in the veld, often thought the lions were very near us, I am sure they were never within a mile of our camp.