The Tower Menagerie. Edward Turner Bennett
it is that on some occasions the Lion has been known, in the capriciousness of his disposition, to suffer his prostrate prey to escape but little injured from his clutch; but these instances are of rare occurrence, and may safely be referred either to his natural indolence, when excited neither by hunger nor by provocation, or to that intellectual debasement which among brutes is the usual concomitant of increased bulk and formidable strength. But to conclude from such whims and freaks, unaccountable as they may sometimes appear, that he is actuated by feelings of mercy, or by the natural impulse of a generous mind, would be about as reasonable as it would be to assume from the instances which are recorded of the justice and generosity of a Tamerlane or a Tippoo, that those monsters of sanguinary cruelty were in reality the mildest and most merciful of despots.
We have said that the Lion generally chooses the night for his excursions; and this is in fact the only time at which he ventures to approach the habitations of man, from which he will frequently carry off horses or oxen, apparently with the greatest ease, and almost without seeming to be incumbered by his burthen. Beyond the precincts of European civilization, and out of the reach of the dreaded rifle, he will sometimes penetrate into the very hut of the Bushman, and prey upon its human inhabitants. It is even stated, and on very respectable authority, that in some of the most distant kraals, or villages, those wretched people purposely expose the old and the infirm among them in such situations as they consider most open to attack, as the Lion’s share, in the expectation that he will instinctively seize upon those who are first thrown in his way. When, however, the Lion finds his appetite thus easily satiated, it is said that he is sure to return night after night to the kraal for a fresh victim; until the miserable remnant of its inhabitants at length find it absolutely necessary to quit the ground, and to seek a precarious safety in flight.
In the daytime, when pressed by hunger, the Lion takes his secret stand among the reeds and long grass in the neighbourhood of springs and rivers, and watches with unwearied patience for such animals as may, for the purpose of quenching their thirst, pass sufficiently near him to ensure the success of his attack. This is generally made in one enormous bound of fifteen, twenty, or even, it is said, thirty feet, and with a force capable of bearing to the ground and completely disabling the most formidable opponent. At times, however, he will pursue his prey somewhat more openly, and by quickly repeated springs; but this is an exertion which he is unable to continue for any considerable length of time, and which, consequently, any animal of moderate fleetness, that has fairly got the start of him, is certain to outstrip. Of this the Lion appears to be fully aware; for, if not successful in the commencement of the chase, he generally relinquishes it at once, and retires gradually, and step by step, to his place of ambush, to watch for a better opportunity and a more certain prey.
It is rarely that the Lion of the Cape district ventures to attack a man, unless provoked, or impelled by urgent hunger. The colonists, however, who are very great sufferers (especially in their horses, for whose flesh he seems to have a peculiar taste) by his frequent visits, are his most determined and deadly foes, and omit no opportunity of wreaking their vengeance upon him for the injuries which he has inflicted upon their property. The frontier boors in particular, who are more exposed to his ravages, and who, being well trained to hunting, are most of them excellent marksmen, appear to take a peculiar pleasure in attacking the Lion, even when they meet him almost singly. They, however, more frequently make up parties for the chase, which is unquestionably attended with no little danger, even when the huntsmen are numerous and experienced; for although the Lion on such occasions almost always takes to his heels, and endeavours to make his escape without confronting his pursuers; yet, when he finds that flight is in vain, he turns upon them with a fierceness and determination that nothing could withstand, were it not for the well proved superiority possessed by them in the formidable rifle, which, on such an emergency, they know how to direct with a steady and almost unerring aim.
The Cape Lion is seldom taken alive; his utter destruction and extermination forming the primary object of his pursuers. Occasionally, however, when a Lioness has been shot, and the hunters have been fortunate enough to trace out her den, the cubs are brought away, and in some measure domesticated, at least for a season, and until they acquire sufficient force to become dangerous. Up to this period some of the colonists will even suffer them to remain almost at large in their dwellings; but they have frequently occasion to rue the mercy they have shown, and are at length compelled, by the unequivocal manifestations of that ferocity which never fails to make its appearance when the animals have attained a certain age, to destroy the creatures whom they have nourished and caressed.
Two male individuals of this breed are now exhibiting at the Tower: the one whose portrait illustrates the present article, and who, although scarcely more than two years and a half old, already rivals his adult Asiatic neighbour in size and majesty, while he exceeds him in grace and agility; and a second, of about ten months old, apparently belonging to the pale variety, and who is just beginning to exhibit the first faint outline of the mane. The former of these is remarkably beautiful and docile: he became an inmate of the Tower in May, 1827; and was, during his voyage from the Cape, being then very young, so tame and domesticated as to be allowed to run about the deck like a dog.
THE BARBARY LIONESS.
Felis Leo.—Var. Numida.
In the male of this variety, which has been more frequently brought to Europe than any other, the mane attains as much developement and covers the under parts of the body as extensively as in the Lion of Eastern Asia, whom, however, at the adult age, he exceeds considerably in size. The Lioness has little to distinguish her from the other breeds.
The specimen now in the Menagerie is a young female about three years and a half old. She was a present to his Majesty from the Emperor of Morocco. During some tempestuous weather, which occurred on her passage, the male who accompanied her was killed, and she herself met with an accident, from the falling of a spar, by which she was curtailed of her fair proportions, and deprived of the greater part of her tail. The disfigurement thus caused is, however, trifling, and she is still a very fine animal.
THE TIGER.
Felis Tigris. Linn.
Closely allied to the Lion, whom he resembles in size, in power, in external form, in internal structure, in zoological characters, in his prowling habits, and in his sanguinary propensities, the Tiger is at once distinguished from that king of beasts, and from every other of their common genus, by the peculiar marking of his coat. On a ground which exhibits in different individuals various shades of yellow, he is elegantly striped by a series of transverse black bands or bars, which occupy the sides of his head, neck, and body, and are continued upon his tail in the form of rings, the last of the series uniformly occupying the extremity of that organ, and giving to it a black tip of greater or less extent. The under parts of his body and the inner sides of his legs are almost entirely white; he has no mane; and his whole frame, though less elevated than that of the Lion, is of a slenderer and more graceful make. His head is also shorter and more rounded.
Almost in the same degree that the Lion has been exalted and magnified, at the expense of his fellow brutes, has the Tiger been degraded and depressed below his just and natural level. While the one has been held up to admiration, as the type and standard of heroic perfection, the other has, with equal capriciousness of judgment and disregard of the close and intimate relationship subsisting between them, been looked upon by mankind in general with those feelings of unmingled horror and detestation which his character for untameable ferocity and insatiable thirst of blood was so well calculated to inspire. It requires, however, but little consideration to teach us that the broad distinction,