hearing locates a herd of zebra, for example. He then gets down wind from what he hopes will be his next meal and stalks to within rushing distance. He can outrun a zebra for a short distance, and when within striking distance he makes a sudden dash. I think that the zebra is thrown by the lion's spring and then killed by a bite in the back of the neck, but this impression is from deduction and not from observation. I have seen a lot of animals that lions had killed but I never saw a lion in the act of killing. In fact, the methods which lions use in hunting are not known in detail from observation, for not enough instances have ever been witnessed and recorded to make the basis for any general statement which could be considered scientifically accurate.
When he has captured his animal the lion will eat and then lie near it perhaps all night, perhaps all the next day, if he is not disturbed, eating as he desires. If he leaves his kill the jackals, hyenas, and vultures will clean it up immediately, and as the lion kills for food and not for sport or the pleasure of killing, he is content with one kill as long as the meat lasts.
The lion group, as I have designed it for the Roosevelt African Hall, will show in the foreground a trickling stream where the lions have come at dawn to drink, while, at a distance on the plains, the vultures and jackals are approaching the kill the lions have just left.
Lion hunters are not agreed about how much lions depend on sight, on sound, and on smell. It is not
