rength of the lion is tremendous, owing to the immense mass of
muscle around its jaws, shoulders, and forearms. What one hears,
however, of his sometimes seizing an ox or a horse in his mouth and
running away with it, as a cat does with a mouse, and even leaping
hedges, etcetera, is nonsense. Dr Livingstone says that most of the
feats of strength he has seen performed by lions consisted, not in
carrying, but dragging or trailing the carcass along the ground.

He usually seizes his prey by the flank near the hind leg, or by the
throat below the jaw. He has his particular likings and tit-bits, and
is very expert in carving out the parts of an animal that please him
best. An eland may be sometimes disembowelled by a lion so completely
that he scarcely seems cut up at all, and the bowels and fatty parts of
the interior form a full meal for the lion, however large or hungry he
may be. His pert little follower the jackal usually goes after him,
sniffing about and waiting for a share, and is sometimes punished for
his impudent familiarity with a stroke of the lion's paw, which of
course kills him.

Lions are never seen in herds, but sometimes six or eight--probably one
family--are seen hunting together. Much has been said and written about
the courage of the lion, and his ability to attack and kill any other
animal. His powers in this respect have been overrated. It is
questionable if a single lion ever attacks a full-grown buffalo. When
he assails a calf, the cow will rush upon him, and one toss from her
horns is sufficient to kill him. The amount of roaring usually heard at
night, when a buffalo is killed, seems to indicate that more than one
lion has been engaged in the fight. They never attack any elephants,
except the calves. "Every living thing," writes Livingstone, "retires
before the lordly elephant, yet a full-grown one would be an easier prey
to the lion than a rhinoceros. The lion rushes off at the mere sight of
this latter beast!"

When a lion grows too old to hunt game, he frequently retires to spend
the decline of life in the suburbs of a native village, where he is well
content to live by killing goats. A woman or a child happening to go
out at night sometimes falls a prey also. Being unable, of course, to
alter this style of life, when once he is reduced to it, he becomes
habitually what is styled a "man-eater," and from this circumstance has
arisen the idea that when a lion has once tasted hum