As they rode back they conversed about lions, to beguile the time. All of them knew something about these animals; but Swartboy, who had been born and brought up in the bush, in the very midst of their haunts as it were, of course was well acquainted with their habits—ay, far better than Monsieur Buffon himself.

To describe the personal appearance of a lion would be to waste words. Every one of my readers must know the lion by sight, either from having seen one in a zoological collection, or the stuffed skin of one in a museum. Every one knows the form of the animal, and his great shaggy mane. Every one knows, moreover, that the lioness is without this appendage, and in shape and size differs considerably from the male.

Though there are not two species of lions, there are what are termed varieties, but these differ very little from each other—far less than the varieties of most other animals.

There are seven acknowledged varieties. The Barbary lion, the lion of Senegal, the Indian lion, the Persian, the yellow Cape, the black Cape, and the maneless lion.

The difference among these animals is not so great, but that at a glance any one may tell they were all of one species and kind. The Persian variety is rather smaller than the others; the Barbary is of darker brown and heavily maned; the lion of Senegal is of light shining yellow colour, and thinly maned; while the maneless lion, as its name imports, is without this appendage. The existence of the last species is doubted by some naturalists. It is said to be found in Syria.

The two Cape lions differ principally in the colour of the mane. In the one it is black or dark brown—in the other of a tawny yellow, like the rest of the body.

Of all lions, those of South Africa are perhaps the largest, and the black variety the most fierce and dangerous.

Lions inhabit the whole continent of Africa, and the southern countries of Asia. They were once common in parts of Europe, where they exist no longer. There are no lions in America. The animal known in Spanish-American countries as the lion (leon) is the cougar or puma (Felis concolor), which is not one-third the lion’s size, and resembles the king of beasts only in being of the same tawny colour. The puma is not unlike a lion’s cub six months old.

Africa is peculiarly the country of the lion. He is found throughout the whole extent of that continent—excepting of course a few thickly inhabited spots, from which he has been expelled by man.

The lion has been called the “king of the forest.” This appears to be a misnomer. He is not properly a forest animal. He cannot climb trees, and therefore in the forest would less easily procure his food than in the open plain. The panther, the leopard, and the jaguar, are all tree-climbers. They can follow the bird to its roost, and the monkey to its perch. The forest is their appropriate home. They are forest animals. Not so the lion. It is upon the open plains—where the great ruminants love to roam, and among the low bushy thickets that skirt them, that the lion affects to dwell.

He lives upon flesh,—the flesh of many kinds of animals, though he has his favourites, according to the country in which he is found. He kills these animals for himself. The story of the jackal being his “provider,”—killing them for him,—is not true. More frequently he himself provides the skulking jackals with a meal. Hence their being often seen in his company—which they keep, in order to pick up his “crumbs.”

The lion “butchers” for himself, though he will not object to ha............