uite
blithely from the open plain, once convinced that you are really an
annoyance.

As to habits! The only sure thing about a lion is his originality. He
has more exceptions to his rules than the German language. Men who have
been mighty lion hunters for many years, and who have brought to their
hunting close observation, can only tell you what a lion MAY do in
certain circumstances. Following very broad principles, they may even
predict what he is APT to do, but never what he certainly WILL do. That
is one thing that makes lion hunting interesting.

In general, then, the lion frequents that part of the country where feed
the great game herds. From them he takes his toll by night, retiring
during the day into the shallow ravines, the brush patches, or the rocky
little buttes. I have, however, seen lions miles from game, slumbering
peacefully atop an ant hill. Indeed, occasionally, a pack of lions likes
to live high in the tall-grass ridges where every hunt will mean for
them a four- or five-mile jaunt out and back again. He needs water,
after feeding, and so rarely gets farther than eight or ten miles from
that necessity.

He hunts at night. This is as nearly invariable a rule as can be
formulated in regard to lions. Yet once, and perhaps twice, I saw
lionesses stalking through tall grass as early as three o'clock in
the afternoon. This eagerness may, or may not, have had to do with the
possession of hungry cubs. The lion's customary harmlessness in the
daytime is best evidenced, however, by the comparative indifference of
the game to his presence then. From a hill we watched three of these
beasts wandering leisurely across the plains below. A herd of kongonis
feeding directly in their path, merely moved aside right and left, quite
deliberately, to leave a passage fifty yards or so wide, but otherwise
paid not the slightest attention. I have several times seen this
incident, or a modification of it. And yet, conversely, on a number of
occasions we have received our first intimation of the presence of lions
by the wild stampeding of the game away from a certain spot.

However, the most of his hunting is done by dark. Between the hours of
sundown and nine o'clock he and his comrades may be heard uttering the
deep coughing grunt typical of this time of night. These curious, short,
far-sounding calls may be mere evidences of intention, or they may be
a sort of signal by means of which the various hunters keep in touch.