(_Felis leo_)
The lion, undoubtedly, owes his title of “king of beasts” to the
flowing mane with which his head and fore-quarters are adorned, as
this confers upon him a dignity and grandeur of appearance entirely
lacking in his maneless partner. Without his mane it is, indeed, more
than questionable whether a lion would not be outclassed in style by a
tiger. As it is, however, the lion, at all events so far as appearance
goes, has an undisputed claim to his royal title; the magnificent
mien of his draped head and shoulders, his bold, imperious eye, the
powerful build of his lithe body, and his resounding roar of defiance,
presenting the very ideal of supreme strength and sovereignty.
The tawny coat, which varies in tint from greyish or yellowish brown
to yellow, is evidently intended to harmonise with the dry grasses and
the yellow sand of the semi-desert tracts which form the favourite
haunts of the lion; and this is confirmed by the fact that the newborn
cubs are mottled with dark brown, thus indicating their descent from
a species with a mottled or spotted coat adapted to a different
environment. Indeed, Somali lions frequently retain traces of these
spots, more especially in the female; and in German East Africa there
exists a race of the lion in which both sexes are more or less fully
and distinctly spotted.
In popular estimation the lion is inseparably connected with Africa,
where it formerly ranged from one end of the continent to the other,
although it has long since disappeared from most parts of Tunis and
Algeria, as well as from Cape Colony. As a matter of fact, _Felis
leo_ is as much an Asiatic as an African animal; while in the time of
Xenophon it was probably found so far west as Thrace and Macedonia.
Earlier still, that is to say in prehistoric times, its range included
the greater part of temperate Europe, not excepting the British Isles.
Unlike the tiger, however, the lion never inhabited the countries to
the east of the Bay of Bengal, nor penetrated to the swamps of Lower
Bengal itself, which are unsuited to its habits. Even so late as the
Mutiny, lions were to be met with over a considerable tract in central
India; although they are nowadays restricted to that district of
Kathiawar, known as the Gir, where they survive only by protection. In
the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris, as well as in parts of Persia,
lions are still to be met with; but how numerous they are in these
countries is difficult to ascertain.
In Africa lions appear to be most abundant in the British, German, and
Portuguese eastern provinces, in some districts of which they seem
bolder and more prone to attack human beings than in many other parts
of the continent. In Somaliland, where they are smaller and greyer
than usual, their number has been greatly reduced of late years. The
handsomest lions of all are those with dark brown or black manes; but
in some parts of the country, at all events, black-maned lions do not
form a distinct race, as dark and light maned cubs may be found in the
same litter.
Although the skulls of the two species present considerable
differences, a lioness, apart from the absence of stripes, is not
unlike a tiger in general appearance; and it has long been a question
whether the lion or the tiger is the more powerful animal, although
the balance of opinion seems to be in favour of the tiger’s claim to
superiority in this respect. Certain it is, that the lion is much the
more noisy animal of the two; a tiger never roaring in the persistent
manner characteristic of the lion. The impression caused by the lion’s
roar appears to depend greatly on the idiosyncrasy of the listener and
the circumstances under which it is heard. Very noteworthy is the fact
that the roar of the two species is essentially similar in character.
As a rule, lions, when too feeble to capture more active prey, turn
into regular man-eaters much less frequently than tigers; but this may
be in part explained by the bolder nature of many African tribes, as
compared with the natives of a large extent of India; and when a lion
makes himself obnoxious, such tribes have no hesitation in attacking
and destroying the marauder.
Lions in Africa subsist, to a great extent, on the flesh of antelopes
and zebras, or bontequaggas; generally stalking their game in parties
of two or three, but one alone making the fatal spring. When stalking,
a lion stretches out its body to the fullest extent, and crawls so
close to the ground that even in low grass its presence is generally
undetected till too late. Occasionally a party of lions combine their
forces to pull down a large animal like a buffalo. Zebras can defend
themselves only by kicking, but the gemsbok and the sable antelope will
pin a lion with their horns, and sometimes come off victorious.
It has been very generally stated that lions are mainly, if not
exclusively, monogamous, and that they mate for life. It has, however,
been pointed out by Mr. Roosevelt that if this were really the case,
they would almost always be found in pairs, that is to say, a lion and
a lioness together. That they are thus found not infrequently may,
indeed, be freely admitted; but, on the other hand, it is much commoner
to come across a lioness and her cubs, an old lion with several
lionesses and their young, a single lion or lioness, a couple of lions
and lionesses, or, lastly, a small troop, which may be composed either
solely of males or females, or of a mixture of the two sexes. “These
facts,” writes the great American hunter, “are not compatible with the
romantic theory in question.”
[Illustration]
The cubs, generally two or three in number, come into the world, unlike
kittens, with their eyes open, and are then about one-third the size
of a cat. As already mentioned, they are heavily mottled with brown
on a tawny ground, and it is very significant that these markings are
to a great extent intermediate in character between the rosettes of
leopards and jaguars and the stripes of the tiger. A peculiar feature
in which the cubs of lions differ from those of leopards and
jaguars, and thereby resemble those of tigers, is the presence of a
white spot near the summit of the back of each ear. From these facts
it has been inferred, in the first place, that the lion is most nearly
related to the tiger, and, in the second place, that lions, tigers,
leopards, and jaguars are all members of a single group. As regards the
mutual relationships of these species, it is generally believed that
spots represent an earlier and more primitive type of colouring than
transverse stripes, and it is therefore inferred that the stripes of
the tiger, which are very frequently partially split or double, have
been derived from the fusion of leopard-like rosettes into transverse
chains. As the self-coloured coat of the adult lion is evidently a
modern feature, it seems clear that tigers and lions are to be regarded
as the most specialised members of the whole group.
Before the investigations which led up to these modern advanced views
had been undertaken, it was very generally believed, on account of its
self-coloured tawny coat, that the American puma--locally known as
the American lion--was one of the nearest relatives of _Felis leo_.
If, however, beauty be but skin deep, colour is an even less deeply
seated feature among animals; and, as the result of the study of the
markings of young cubs of the puma, it seems certain that this species
has acquired its uniform tawny livery quite independently of the lion.
For newly born puma cubs exhibit a pattern of quadrangular blackish
markings totally different in form and arrangement from those of
young lions, tigers, leopards, or jaguars, and approximating in some
degree to those of the smaller cats. Accordingly, in the opinion of
the investigator to whom we are indebted for these very interesting
views with regard to the inter-relationships of the various members
of the feline tribe, it seems highly probable that the puma may be an
overgrown self-coloured representative of the group of smaller cats
typified by the ordinary domesticated species and its wild relatives.
A remarkable feature connected with the tuft at the tip of the tail of
the lion is the frequent presence of a horny spur or claw, the function
of which is still unknown, although it is certain that it is not
employed, as was once thought to be the case, to goad the animal into
fury when the tail is lashed against the flanks. It has been asserted
that this spur is found only in the Indian lion; but this is as
erroneous as the statement made by the same writer that it represents
the last joint of the vertebræ of the tail to which the blood is unable
to obtain access. A very similar structure exists in one member of the
kangaroo tribe, known as the spur-tailed wallaby, in which, however,
the spur is common to both sexes and quite constant in its development.
Menagerie lions, it may be mentioned, generally display a greater
luxuriance and profusion of mane than their wild relatives; while it
is in the former alone that any marked development of long hair on the
under surface of the body is noticeable. The reason for this is, of
course, too obvious to require explanation, more especially when it is
borne in mind that lions inhabiting open plains with grass-jungle have
larger manes than those which have to get their living in a country
overgrown with thorn-bushes.