Though this noble animal inhabits only the hottest regions, yet he will live, and, with care, might even breed in temperate ones. Gesner mentions that lions were brought forth in the menagerie of Florence; and Willoughby tells us, that at Naples, a lioness which had been confined with a lion, produced five whelps at one litter. Such examples are rare, but if true, they prove that lions are not absolutely averse to mild climates. At present there are none of them in the southern parts of Europe; so early as the days of Homer, there were no lions in Peloponnesus, yet they existed in Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, in the time of Aristotle. It is, therefore, evident that in all ages they have given the preference to the hottest climates; that they seldom resided in temperate ones, and never in the frozen regions of the north. The naturalists above quoted, though they mention lions being brought forth in Florence and Naples, are silent as to the time of gestation in the lioness, the size of the young, when whelped, and the degrees of their growth. Ælian says she goes only two months, while Philostratus and Edward Wotten affirm it to be six. I think the latter opinion is nearest the truth, because the lion is an animal of great magnitude, and in general the time of gestation is longer among the large than the small species. Thus it is also with the growth of the body. Both ancients and moderns allow that the new-born lion is not bigger than the weasel, that is from six to seven inches long; if so, several years must elapse before he can increase to eight or nine feet. It is also said that they cannot walk before they are two months old. But, without giving entire credit to these assertions, we may with probability presume, from the largeness of the size, that he is three or four years in acquiring his full growth, and that he consequently lives to about the age of twenty-five. The Sieur de St. Martin, master of the bull-fights at Paris, who willingly communicated to me the observations he had made upon the lions which he reared, assured me that he has kept lions for fifteen or sixteen years, and that he does not believe they live above the age of twenty or twenty-two. But it must be evident the want of exercise, constraint, and irksomeness of situation to those which are in confinement, must impair health and shorten life.