LION (*III ari; arjeh ; Sept. Vow), the .
most powerful, daring, and impressive of all car nivorous animals, the most magnificent in aspect and awful in voice. Being very common in Syria in early times, the lion naturally supplied many forcible images to the poetical language of Scrip ture, and not a few historical incidents in its narra tives. This is shewn by the great number of passages where this animal, in all the stages of existence—as the whelp, the young adult, the fully mature, the lioness—occurs under different names, exhibiting that multiplicity of denominations which always results when some great image is constantly present to the popular mind. Thus we have—t. -11.3 gor, a lion s whelp, a very young lion (Gen. xlix. 9; Deut. xxxiii. 20 ; Jer. 38; Ezek. xix. 2 ; Nahum ii. I I, 12, etc.) 2. TO: chephir a young lion, when first leaving the protection of the old pair to hunt independently (Ezek. 2, 3 ; Ps.
xci. ; Prov. xix. 12, etc.) 3. ari an adult and vigorous lion, a lion having paired, vigilant and enterprising in search of prey (Nahum 12; 2 Sam. xvii. to; Num. xxiii. 24). This is the common name of the animal. 4. $1-0 sachal, a mature lion in full strength; a black lion? (Job iv. to; x. 16; Ps. xci. 13; Prov. xxvi. 13; Hosea v. 14; xiii. 7). This denomination may very possibly refer to a distinct variety of lion, and not to a black species or mce, because neither black nor white lions are recorded, excepting in Oppian (De Venal. iii. 43); but the term may be safely referred to the colour of the skin, not of the fur; for some lions have the former fair, and even rosy, while in other races it is perfectly black. An Asiatic lioness, formerly at Exeter Change, had the naked part of the nose, the roof of the mouth, and the bare soles of all the feet pure black, though the fur itself was very pale buff. Yet albinism and melanism are not uncommon in the felinm; the former occurs in tigers, and the latter is frequent in leopards, panthers, and jaguars. 5. eAl., lash, a fierce lion, one in a state of fury (Job iv. It ; Prov. xxx. 3o ;
Is. XXX. 6). 6. t.rtz labia, a lioness (Job. iv. 1, where the lion's whelps are denominated the sons of Labiall,' or of the lioness).
The lion is the largest and most formidably armed of all carnassier animals, the Indian tiger alone claiming to be his equal. One full grown, of Asiatic race, weighs above 430 pounds, and those of Africa often above soo pounds. The fall of a fore paw in strikin,g has been estimated to be equal to twenty-five pounds' weight, and the grasp of the claws, cutting four inches in depth, is suffi ciently powerful to break the vertebrx of an ox. The huge laniary teeth and jagged molars worked by powerful jaws, and the tongue entirely covered with homy papilke, hard as a rasp, are all subser vient to an immensely strong, muscular ttructure, capable of prodigious exertion, and minister to the self-confidence which these means of attack inspire. In Asia the lion rarely measures more than nine feet and a half from the nose to the end of the tail, though a tiger-skin of which we took the ditnen sions was but a trifle less than thirteen feet. In Africa they are considerably larger, and supplied with a much greater quantity of mane. Both tiger and lion are furnished with a small homy apex to the tail—a fact noticed by the ancients, but only verified of late years, because this object lies con cealed in the hair of the tip and is very liable to drop off: All the varieties of the lion are spotted when whelps ; but they become gradually buff or pale. One African variety, very large in size, per haps a distinct species, has a peculiar and most ferocious physiognomy, a dense black mane ex tending half way down the back, and a black fringe along the abdomen and tip of the tail ; while those of southern Persia and tbe Dekkan are nearly destitute of that defensive ornament. The roaring voice of the species is notorious to a proverb, but the warning cry of attack is short, snappish, and sharp.