But even this limited degree of amiability, which, in an animal of less formidable powers, would be considered as indicating no peculiar mildness of temper, is modified by the calls of hunger, by the feelings of revenge, which he frequently cherishes for a considerable length of time, and by various other circumstances which render it dangerous to approach him unguardedly, even in his tamest and most domesticated state, without previously ascertaining his immediate state of mind. On such occasions no keeper possessed of common prudence would be rash enough to venture upon confronting him: he knows too well that it is no boy’s play to … seek the Lion in his den, And fright him there, and make him tremble there; for in this state of irritation, from whatever cause it may have arisen, he gives free scope to his natural ferocity, unrestrained by that control to which at other times he submits with meek and unresisting patience. Happily for mankind the range of this tremendous animal is limited to the warmer climates of the earth; and even in these the extent of that range is constantly becoming more and more confined by the spread of human civilization, which, at the same time that it drives him to take refuge at a distance from the haunts of men, contributes greatly to thin his numbers and to diminish his power of annoyance. His true country is Africa, in the vast and untrodden wilds of which, from the immense deserts of the north to the trackless forests of the south, he reigns supreme and uncontrolled. In the sandy deserts of Arabia, in some of the wilder districts of Persia, and in the vast jungles of Hindostan, he still maintains a precarious footing: but from the classic soil of Greece, as well as from the whole of Asia Minor, both of which were once exposed to his ravages, he has been utterly dislodged and extirpated. There is some variation in the different races of Lions from these distant localities; but this is by no means of sufficient importance to establish a distinction between them. The Asiatic Lion, of which we are now treating, seldom attains a size equal to that of the full-grown Southern African; its colour is a more uniform and paler yellow throughout; and its mane is, in general, fuller and more complete, being furnished moreover with a peculiar appendage in the long hairs, which, commencing beneath the neck, occupy the whole of the middle line of the body below. All these distinctions are, however, modified by age, and vary in different individuals. Their habits are in essential particulars the same: we shall therefore defer what we have farther to say on this head until we come to speak of the Cape Lion, and proceed to the history of the Asiatic individual now exhibiting in this Menagerie, a striking likeness of which is given in the engraving at the head of the present article.