ld hunt well. He was a brave
lion, and he knew he was strong and nearly full grown now, and he knew
his teeth were sharp, as were his claws, and his paws were strong, both
for striking and leaping, for that is how a lion hunts.

"Boom! Boom!" rolled out the lions' roars in the jungle.

"Ah, we shall have a grand hunt to-night!" said Nero's father. "I hope
you are still hungry."

"Yes I am, very," answered the boy lion.

"That is good," returned the father. "Now we will start. At first stay
close to me, but when you see a goat or a sheep or some other animal you
think you would like to eat, spring on it and strike it with your
claws."

Of course this sounds cruel, but lions must get their food this way;
there is no other.

Suddenly Nero opened his mouth and gave a great roar, the loudest he had
ever uttered. It shook the ground on which he stood. The trembling of
the earth seemed to tickle the pads of skin and flesh of his paws, pads
which were the same to him as your shoes are to you.

"Ha, that was a fine roar, Nero!" said his father. "Roar again!"

And Nero did, louder than at first.

"That's the way!" cried Mr. Lion. "That will tell the other jungle folk
to keep out of our way when we are having a night-hunt."

And that, I suppose, is why lions roar. They do it to frighten away the
other animals who might spoil their hunt in the jungle.

For the lion's voice, when he roars, is frightfully loud. There is no
other animal who can make so much noise--not even the elephant, which is
larger than ten lions. If you have ever heard a lion roar, even in his
circus cage, or in a city park, you will never forget it.

And so Nero roared, and his father roared, and the other lions, all
about them in the jungle, roared until there was a regular lion chorus,
and the other beasts, hearing it, slunk back to their dens or caves, or
crouched under fallen trees, and one after another said to himself:

"The lions are out hunting to-night. It is best for us to stay in until
they have finished. Then it will be our turn."

And so you see how it is that the strength of a lion makes the other
animals afraid when the big animals hunt. Elephants do not need to fear
lions, for the big animals, with trunks and tusks, do not eat the same
kind of food lions eat. Elephants live on grass, hay, palm-nuts and
things that grow. But the lion eats only meat, and he would eat an
elephant if he could get one, though it might take him a long w