Ostriches must admire the lion's roar, for they seem to try to imitate it. African travellers say they do it very well, too. Hunters can be sure of one thing. A roar at night means a lion; a roar in the daytime an ostrich.

Did you ever see a cat miss catching a mouse ? She looks ashamed of herself. She peeps around to see if any one noticed her failure, and slinks away as if she wanted to forget it. Lions do the same. And they do not attack elephants and other big, thick skinned, tusked animals that fight back. Nor do they attack men, unless they are wounded or driven into a corner, or sometimes when the man is asleep and helpless and the lion very hungry. Some African travellers say that if a man meets a lion, all he has to do is to stand still and look him square in the eyes and Mr Lion will back away, then turn tail and run. I wouldn't like to put that to the test, would you? But a lion is used to seeing animals run from him in fear. It might puzzle him to see a man stand still and stare at him. Wild animals are a good deal like human beings in that. They are afraid of what they don't understand.

Travellers say the lion isn't nearly as brave as the tiger, nor as noble as he looks. He slinks along through tall grass, or behind bushes with his head hanging below his shoulders. He never fights any animal that can defend itself unless he is forced to do so. The only time he shows great courage is in defending his mate and cubs, and then the lioness is fiercer than the lion. In captivity, of course, he is savage. He thinks of himself as in a trap, very likely, and that every man who comes near him wants to kill him. That makes him very dangerous.

How do you suppose this big, bearded wild cat is ever tamed so far that he lets his trainer use him for a pillow, drive him to a cart, play see-saw with him, wrestle with him, and jump through a hoop at a word of command?

The training of a lion is simple. He has to be made to understand two things. One is that his trainer is his friend and means to use him well. The other is that the man is master. The trainer begins by going up near the bars, talking to the lion kindly, and throwing him some meat. It isn't long before the lion learns to know and to watch for the man who feeds him. Next the trainer, while talking, puts a stout stick between the bars. With a terrible roar the lion springs on the stick and crushes it into splinters. But the trainer keeps right on putting sticks between the bars, talking kindly to the lion and feeding him. After a few weeks the lion pays no attention to the stick, or he smells it and walks away. Finally he lets the trainer touch him with it, and stroke his back as he eats.

It is several months before the trainer tries going into the cage. He takes the stick with him and a stout chair. He sits down and pretends to read a newspaper. The lion crouches back in a corner and growls. If he should spring the trainer has the chair up, legs out, before his face, and Mr. Lion gets a bumped head and a blow on the nose—his tenderest spot. Very slowly he learns to trust his master and to fear him, too. Sometimes a lion seems to grow fond of his trainer.

When petted he will purr as if he had a whole swarm of bees in his throat. But trainers never forget that the tamest lion is always dangerous. He is sly and treacherous, too. Without an instant's warning he may forget all his lessons and turn on his best friend. So the trainer watches and watches, never quite trusting even a lion that he has brought up from a cub.

Lion cubs are the cunningest babies. They really look and act more like puppies than kittens. They are as fat and clumsy and woolly as Newfoundland puppies. In Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago, a keeper takes a family of three or four lion kittens out onto a grass plot for a romp. Crowds and crowds of people watch them tumble over each other. They are not born blind as tame kittens are, but they are just as helpless, and for a long time cannot even lap milk from a saucer. Sometimes the mother lion, soured on the world by being shut in a cage, won't have anything to do with her babies. They die unless some other animal with milk can be found to nurse them. The very best foster mother for lion kittens is—not a cat, but a dog. A shepherd or collie dog is the best, for she is trained to care for sheep. She nurses them, fondles them and seems as proud of them as a mother. But in a few months they grow so big and rough that she looks at them in wonder and alarm, as a hen looks at a duckling she has hatched to take to the water. She must think the fairies have changed these babies in their cradles, for they are none of hers! And by the time they are old enough to be weaned they are too much for doggie. See Lion, page 1077, Vol. II.