drinking at the pool, the lion puts his mouth to the ground and roars.
It sounds just like thunder.

When you hear a roll of thunder, it sometimes happens that you cannot
tell from which direction the thunder is coming. In the same way, when
the animals hear the lion's roar, they cannot always tell from which
side the roar is coming, because by putting his mouth to the ground the
lion sends the roar in all directions. So in their terror some of the
animals run the wrong way, and actually run toward the lion. Then the
lion finds it easy to leap upon at least one of them.

The lion seldom hunts in the daytime. But when he does, he uses a
different method. He chooses a pool amid sandy or stony ground. Then he
half buries himself in the sand, or lies low among the stones and
boulders. So if any animal comes to drink from the pool, it does not
notice the lion because the lion's tawny color makes him look like the
sand or stones. Then the lion leaps upon the animal and catches it.

After having his meal, the lion drinks from the pool. If the prey is
rather large, so that he cannot finish it at one meal, he keeps it for
the next day's meal. He drags the animal's body to some hiding place and
covers it up with sand or leaves. Of course, he stays somewhere near
that place, as otherwise _the thieves of the jungle_ would eat up the
food. The thieves of the jungle are the jackal and the hyena.

But as the lion usually hunts his prey in the night, he generally sleeps
in the daytime. He is not really dangerous except at night. If a man
meets a lion suddenly in the daytime, the lion will not usually attack
him, unless very hungry. Many a man who has met a lion in the jungle by
day has escaped in safety by just standing still, making no sound and no
motion. After a glance at the man, the lion has walked off.

_Most wild animals are afraid of man._ Perhaps that is because they do
not quite understand him, or how he can hurt them from a distance--by
shooting them with a gun or even with an arrow. That is why most wild
animals try to avoid man, unless they are wounded or are very hungry.

But I must tell you here that a tiger attacks a man much more readily
than a lion does. Even in the daytime a tiger will usually attack any
man he meets--like the fisherman that the tiger carried off from the
river, as told on page 110.

At night, however, _all_ animals of the Cat Tribe are dangerous, and
many a night a lion has been known to cre