By permission of Herr Carl Hagenbeck] [Hamburg.
A PERFORMING LION.
Lions, it would seem, are capable of being taught almost anything, even tricycle-riding.
To-day lions are still to be found wherever game exists in any quantity, and their numbers will be in proportion to those of the wild animals on which they prey.
The indefinite increase of lions must be checked by some unknown law of nature, otherwise they would have become so numerous in the sparsely inhabited or altogether uninhabited parts of Africa, that they would first have exterminated all the game on which they had been wont to prey, and would then have had to starve or to have eaten one another. But such a state of things has never been known to occur; and whenever Europeans have entered a previously unexplored and uninhabited tract of country in Africa, and have found it teeming with buffaloes, zebras, and antelopes, they have always found lions in such districts very plentiful indeed, but never in such numbers as to seriously diminish the abundance of the game upon which they depended for food.
Photo by G. W. Wilson & Co., Ltd.] [Aberdeen.
LIONESS AND CUB.
Lion cubs thrive both in Dublin and Amsterdam, but not so well at the London Zoo.
It is easy to understand that the increase of a herd of herbivorous animals would be regulated by the amount of the food-supply available, as well as constantly checked by the attacks of the large carnivora, such as lions, leopards, cheetas, hyænas, and wild dogs; but I have never been able to comprehend what has kept within bounds the inordinate increase of lions and other carnivorous animals in countries where for ages past they have had an abundant food-supply, and at the same time, having been almost entirely unmolested by human beings, have had no enemies. Perhaps such a state of things does not exist at the present day, but there are many parts of Africa where such conditions have existed from time immemorial up to within quite recent years.