He Needs Water, After
Feeding, And So Rarely Gets Farther Than Eight Or Ten Miles From
That Necessity.
He hunts at night.
This is as nearly invariable a rule as can be
formulated in regard to lions. Yet once, and perhaps twice, I saw
lionesses stalking through tall grass as early as three o'clock
in the afternoon. This eagerness may, or may not, have had to do
with the possession of hungry cubs. The lion's customary
harmlessness in the daytime is best evidenced, however, by the
comparative indifference of the game to his presence then. From a
hill we watched three of these beasts wandering leisurely across
the plains below. A herd of kongonis feeding directly in their
path, merely moved aside right and left, quite deliberately, to
leave a passage fifty yards or so wide, but otherwise paid not
the slightest attention. I have several times seen this
incident, or a modification of it. And yet, conversely, on a
number of occasions we have received our first intimation of the
presence of lions by the wild stampeding of the game away from a
certain spot.
However, the most of his hunting is done by dark. Between the
hours of sundown and nine o'clock he and his comrades may be
heard uttering the deep coughing grunt typical of this time of
night. These curious, short, far-sounding calls may be mere
evidences of intention, or they may be a sort of signal by means
of which the various hunters keep in touch.
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