The last lion which I shot, on October 3, 1892, near the Pungwe river in South-Eastern Africa, was a very thick-set, massive animal, and enormously fat. He would, I think, have weighed very heavy, but unfortunately I had no scale with me. I took a few careful measurements, however, which are as follows: Length as he lay in a straight line between pegs driven into the ground at the nose and tip of the tail, 9 ft. 1 in.; vertical standing height at shoulder, 3 ft. 4 ins.; girth of body behind the shoulders, 4 ft. 0½ ins.; girth of forearm, 17 ins.; length of pegged-out skin exactly 11 ft. If any conclusion can be drawn from these few statistics, it is I think that a lion which weighs much over 400 lbs. is an exceptionally heavy animal. One of the most striking characteristics of the lion is his roar, for there is no more magnificent sound in Nature than the volume of sound produced by a party of lions roaring in unison, that is, if one is fortunate enough to be very near to them. It is, however, a rare occurrence to hear lions roar loudly within a short distance of one’s camp, and in all my experience, though I have heard these animals roaring upon hundreds of different occasions, I can count the nights on the fingers of one hand when, all unconscious of my near vicinity, a party of several lions has roared freely within 100 yards of where I was lying. Last year, whilst hunting with two companions in the neighbourhood of the Pungwe river, I don’t think a single night passed during the six weeks we remained in that part of the country that we did not hear lions, and sometimes three different parties of these animals were roaring round our camp at the same time. But on no single occasion were they ever within a mile of where we were sleeping, and as there are probably few parts of Africa where lions are more plentiful than in this particular district, I think it is quite possible to have had a very considerable experience of African travel and yet never to have heard lions roaring freely at very close quarters. If ever experienced, such a serenade can never be forgotten, for it is at once magnificent yet calculated to fill the soul with awe.