The largest lions are about eight or nine feet in length, from the snout to the tail, which is four feet long, and are between four and five feet high. Those of the small size are about five feet and a half long, three feet and a half high, and their tail rather more than three feet long. In all her dimensions the lioness is about one fourth less than the lion. Aristotle divides lions into the greater and smaller, and the latter, he says, are short in proportion, have their hair more frizzled, and are less courageous than the former. He adds, that in general all lions are yellow. The first of these assertions appears doubtful, since no traveller has mentioned lions with frizzled hair; some authors, indeed, who, in other respects do not merit entire confidence, speak of a tiger with curled hair found at the Cape of Good Hope; but almost all testimonies agree as to the colour of the lion, which is uniformly yellow on the back and within on the sides and belly. Ælian and Opian have asserted, that in Ethiopia the lions are as black as the men; that in India there are some white and others spotted and striped with red, black, and blue; but this is not confirmed by any authentic testimony, for Marco Polo the Venetian, does not speak of these striped and spotted lions as if he had seen them, and Gesner observes that he only mentions them on the authority of Ælian. It appears on the contrary, that there are few or no varieties in these species; that the lions of Asia and Africa perfectly resemble each other, and that those of the plains differ less in colour from those which dwell in the mountains than in size. _Engraved for Barr's Buffon._ [Illustration: FIG. 99. _Lion._] [Illustration: FIG. 100. _Lioness._] The lion (_fig. 99._) is furnished with a mane, or rather long hair, which covers all his fore-parts, and becomes longer as he advances in age; but the lioness, (_fig. 100._) however old, is without this appendage. The American animal, which the natives of Peru call Puma, and the Europeans Lion, has no mane, and is smaller, weaker, and more cowardly, than the real lion. It is not impossible that the mildness of the climate in South America might have such influence on the nature of the lion as to strip him of his mane, reduce his size, and repress his courage; but it appears absolutely impossible that this animal, which inhabits the tropical regions only, and to whom Nature, to all appearance, has shut up every avenue to the north, should pass from the southern part of Asia or Africa into America, those continents being divided towards the south by immense seas. From this circumstance it is probable that the puma is not the lion, deriving its origin from those of the old continent and since degenerated, but that he is an animal peculiar to America, like other animals found on the new continent.