ostrich heard near by; and in thick cover the grunt or growl of a lion, indistinctly heard, may be mistaken for the grunt of a buffalo or the occasional growl-I know no other word to describe the sound-of an elephant, a beast which sometimes utters the queerest and most unexpected noises. It has been asserted that the lion never roars when hungry, because to do so would frighten his prey, and that his roaring is a sign that he is full fed; this sounds plausible; and yet as a matter of fact I doubt if it is true. Unquestionably, after a successful chase lions roar freely; I have most often heard them between midnight and morning. But I have also heard regular roaring-not mere moaning, or the panting noise occasionally indulged in by a hungry questing beast-soon after dark, and this was persevered in at intervals for an hour or so. I am inclined to think that generally lions are silent until they have killed, but that occasionally, whether as signals to one another or from mere pride and overbearing insolence, they roar at intervals on their way through the darkness from their resting-place to their hunting-field. Of course, when they reach the actual place where they are to hunt they become quiet; unless they deliberately try to stampede the animals by roaring, or unless several are hunting together, spread out around a herd of zebra or antelope, when one may roar or grunt to scare the animals toward the others. Ordinarily lions make no sound that can alarm their prey; yet even when actually hunting an occasional hungry lion may utter a kind of sigh or moan-an eerie sound when heard close by in the pitchy darkness. On rare occasions a lioness deprived of her cubs or one of a pair of lions whose mate has been shot will roar savagely after nightfall, perhaps in the neighborhood where the loss occurred, perhaps while travelling about. Old males may roar again and again in answer to one another as if challenging; and if one party begins to roar it will often bring an answer from any lion within hearing. At bay a lion utters a continuous growling, broken by muttered roars; and he grunts loudly as he charges. When disturbed a lion grunts as he gallops away.

Lions do not go into heavy forest, although they make their day lairs along the edges. They like to lie up for the day

in patches of jungle which border on open plains, in bushes in open scrub, in clumps of reeds, in any thick bit of cover in the open thorn forests which are so plentiful in much of the game country; and perhaps especially in a strip of cover along a river, or one of the dense masses of brush and trees, of small extent, which are found along the watercourses. They also lie in tall grass. Occasionally they lie, throughout the day, right out in the open, on a mound or the side of an ant-hill, or under a low bush or tree that does not shield them from sight. If the grass is very tall they find it easy to get close to their prey and to evade human observation; and where the brush is thick or the open forest fairly continuous it is almost a chance if one comes on them. If much molested they become strictly nocturnal; otherwise, under more natural conditions, although they spend most of the day sleeping, they may sometimes be seen leisurely strolling in the open, and they often return to their resting-places after sunrise, and leave them before sunset-although even under such circumstances it is only exceptionally that they hunt except under cover of darkness. Once we came on a big male lion in midafternoon walking back across the open plain to a zebra he had killed on the previous night; and once, at the same time of day, we came on a lioness leading her cubs back to the carcass of a wildebeest, also slain over night. On another afternoon we came across a lion and lioness gazing intently at an old bull wildebeest which was returning their stare, very much on the alert, at a distance of sixty yards.

Except when resting, and in the breeding-season, the whole career of a lion may be summed up in the single word, rapine. For all the creatures of the wilderness, save the full-grown elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus, he is the terror that stalks by night. His prowess is extraordinary. His tactics are stealth, surprise, and sudden overwhelming fury of attack. Occasionally he hunts by day, but in the great majority of cases by night; and the darker the night the bolder he is and the more to be feared. If an animal passes close to his resting-place in the daytime he will often attack it; and in wild regions he may if hungry begin to hunt early in the afternoon or continue to hunt late in

and gazelle will keep a watch on a lion thus moving by, and will not go very near it, but show no special alarm or excitement. Where game swarms, and beasts of prey are abundant, and, therefore, often seen, the animals that are preyed on are so constantly exposed to assault that although always on the watch and often very nervous if they suspect the presence of a lion or leopard without being able to place it exactly, they yet grow to reckon their chances with coolness if the creature they dread can be seen, and show a curious indifference to the presence of the

their speed, seem unconcerned about the presence of a lion if far enough from him to avoid his first rush. Animals of the bush are even more confident in his presence, or at least this is true of the smaller ones, which are adepts at dodging and twisting through the bushes and among the tree-trunks. Once we found a reedbuck lying up in a large patch of reeds which also contained a lioness; the two animals were spending the day in peaceful rest not fifty yards apart. On another occasion we found a bushbuck at home in a thick bit of jungle, by a small

river, which jungle contained a quantity of lion-dens, although only one lion was at home at the time. This lion made off along a dim trail, passing by the bushbuck within ten yards; but these ten yards were filled with small tree-trunks, tough, close-growing bushes, and vines, and the bushbuck, although much on the alert, evidently did not think it worth while to

move.

The lion's coloration, taken as a whole, is undoubtedly concealing. Considering all conditions, white is probably the most conspicuous of all colors, and next to white among mammals comes black; while a countershaded yellow dun or dull gray is probably the least conspicuous, the most concealing. Town-dwellers, or unobservant persons, are sometimes surprised to learn that even at night a black animal is ordinarily and taking the average of all conditions (although not always) more easily made out than a dull-gray or khakicolored one; but all Western cowboys know that on the average a white horse is most conspicuous at night, a pied horse next,

and then a black horse; while the claybanks or yellow duns, or the dull grays, are the hardest to see. In the old days, while night-herding on the Western cattle ranches, there would, of course, be nights when I could see nothing, or when all the animals looked alike until I was within arm's length of them; but on the average the colors of the horses and cattle were conspicuous in the order above given. Donkeys, gray and countershaded, were the hardest of all animals to see, even harder than the only less invisible dun horses; at the time I attributed their greater invisibility purely to their inferior size, my attention not having been drawn to the question of countershading, which may have some effect.

The lion's general coloration, then, is concealing, as concealing as the general body color of an eland, oryx, roan antelope or buck of the big gazelle. The body coats of all these animals have a concealing value in their ordinary surroundings. As regards the antelopes mentioned, their habits, and in particular their habitual con

spicuous uprightness of attitude, are such that the concealing quality of their coats is of no consequence. When they stand in their ordinary attitudes the countershading has probably some little effect in increasing the concealing quality of their coloration; nevertheless they never seek. to conceal themselves and never profit by concealment. But, unlike the big grasseaters of the open plains which always stand upright, the lion invariably squats and crouches when seeking to elude observation, so that in its case the effect of the countershading disappears at all critical moments, and is doubtless entirely negligible as an element in the beast's concealment. But this is not all. Even with a lioness the black-tipped ears are revealing, and so is the seemingly involuntary waving of the black-tipped tail. The male lion has some strongly revealing bodily attributes. His mane is conspicuous, and when it is black it has a highly revealing quality. Yet the black-maned lions are generally beasts in high condition; apparently neither the presence of this highly revealing black mane in some males, nor the absence of all mane in the

females, has any effect one way or the other in helping or hampering the animal against its prey. Therefore, neither the revealing quality of the black mane, nor the concealing quality caused by its absence has any effect as a survival factor. The slightest reflection will convince every one of the truth of this statement; but very few seem to perceive its apparent meaning; for it is difficult to account for this evident fact except by the admission that the lion's coloration is really a wholly minor, and probably a wholly negligible, element in enabling it to approach its prey unperceived,-in other words, that the undoubtedly concealing quality of the lion's coloration is of interest chiefly as a coloristic fact, and plays little real part and probably no part at all in the animal's success in life.

The lion sometimes lies in wait at a drinking-place, especially in seasons of drought when the water-holes are few in number, and when the game is obliged by thirst to come to each of them. But of the numerous kills we came across, several hundred in number all told, only a few were by the drinking-places. The

great majority were out on the plains. Evidently the lion far more frequently kills his game by stalking, still-hunting, or driving on the plains than by lying in wait at a watering-place. Unquestionably a party of lions will sometimes drive game; they spread out and those to one side, by grunting, or merely by their smell, stampede the game so that those on the other side may catch it. Ordinarily, however, the lion crouches motionless as his prey grazes toward him, or himself crawls toward it, with almost inconceivable noiselessness and stealth. The darker the night the bolder the lion; under the bright moonlight a lion is apt to be somewhat cautious, whereas there is almost no limit to its daring in black, stormy weather. No matter how pitch-dark the night, the lion seems to have no difficulty in seizing his prey in such manner as to insure its well-nigh instant death. Except fullgrown elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus, there is no animal in Africa which the lion does not attack, and it preys on the young of all three creatures and in altogether exceptional instances parties of lions have been known to attack and master nearly full-grown cows or half-grown young bulls of all three of them. The giraffe is occasionally killed. In parts of Africa the buffalo is a common prey; but where other game is plentiful lions prefer to avoid combat with such formidable quarry, and they rarely attack a buffalo bull in full vigor unless several of them are together. On Heatley's ranch near Nairobi lions sometimes laid up in a big papyrus bed which sheltered a herd of buffalo; but zebra and hartebeest and other buck swarmed near by, and during our stay the lions never meddled with the buffalo except on one occasion when a lion and a lioness together killed a young cow which they found by itself. At Meru Boma I met a visiting district commissioner, Mr. Pigott, who a few months previously had found the remains of a big buffalo bull which had been attacked and overpowered by a party of lions; the struggle had been terrific; and near by lay the body of a lioness, her flank ripped open by one of the buffalo's horns. A fullgrown male lion, however, will kill a cow buffalo single-handed, and when sharp-set by hunger has even been known to kill a

full-grown bull, usually after a hard struggle. Of course, in such a case the lion owes his success to surprise, the attack being delivered with terrific rapidity, and the quarry taken completely unawares. Even a cow buffalo if on her guard would have a good chance of beating off a lion, and a bull would almost certainly do so. But if the lion can bound on his victim, fixing the claws of one fore paw on its face or muzzle, while the other holds it by the shoulder and the great fangs tear at the neck, feeling for the bone, he is very apt to win. In such a case the buffalo is so hampered that it can not exert its full strength, and with its head twisted to one side there is a fair chance of its breaking its neck in one of its headlong plunges; and unless it can shake off the lion, sooner or later the latter's teeth meet through the spinal marrow and the fight is over. When several lions attack jointly they apparently interfere with one another, or else embolden one another, so much that the quarry is less scientifically seized, and is usually clawed and bitten all over. Probably lions occasionally strike heavy blows with their massive, powerful forearms; but this is certainly not common; personally I have never known it to be done; ordinarily the claws are merely used to hold the animal and the killing is done with the teeth. Thick brush, and to an even greater degree long grass, favor a lion's attack, enabling him to make his rush so close up that the prey has little chance of escape; but on a bare plain the game may get just the second's time necessary to escape, and if it is a big, powerful, even though unwarlike animal, like an eland, it may wrench itself free from a bad hold, where its head or neck has not been seized, and escape. The great majority of the kills that I saw were zebras and hartebeests; but I also came on the carcasses of eland, wildebeest, oryx, waterbuck, warthog, kob, impalla, and gazelle, which had fallen victims. Usually it was impossible to tell just how the killing had been done; twice I found zebras with the big fang marks on the back of the neck; I found a hartebeest which had been seized by the throat; several animals showed claw marks on their faces; a young waterbuck cow had been bitten through the head-I think, but, of course, can not be certain, that this was