Nero, the Circus Lion | Page 6

going to have supper with Switchie and his folks. You and I are going to hunt for ourselves. Come, we will go into a part of the jungle where you have never yet been."
And Nero felt very much excited when he heard his father say this. The lion cub felt brave and strong, and he knew that his teeth and claws were very sharp.
Suddenly, through the jungle, which was now quite dark, there came a distant sound as if of thunder. There was a rumble and a roar, and the very ground seemed to shake.
"What's that?" asked Nero, looking at his father.
CHAPTER III
NERO IS SHOT
Once again, as Nero stood with Mr. Lion at the front door of the jungle cave, the roaring sound echoed among the trees.
"What is that?" asked the boy lion once more.
"That is the roaring of other lions, who are also going out to hunt to-night," said Nero's father. "There will be many of us lions in the jungle; perhaps others, like you, who are going out for the first time. You must be brave and strong. Remember the lessons your mother and I have taught you. Crouch down and jump hard. Strike hard with your paws and dig deep with your sharp claws. That is what they are for--to help you hunt so that you may get things to eat. Now we will start."
By this time the jungle around the cave where Nero lived seemed filled with the roarings of other lions. The very ground seemed to tremble. Nero was excited, but he was sure he could hunt well. He was a brave lion, and he knew he was strong and nearly full grown now, and he knew his teeth were sharp, as were his claws, and his paws were strong, both for striking and leaping, for that is how a lion hunts.
"Boom! Boom!" rolled out the lions' roars in the jungle.
"Ah, we shall have a grand hunt to-night!" said Nero's father. "I hope you are still hungry."
"Yes I am, very," answered the boy lion.
"That is good," returned the father. "Now we will start. At first stay close to me, but when you see a goat or a sheep or some other animal you think you would like to eat, spring on it and strike it with your claws."
Of course this sounds cruel, but lions must get their food this way; there is no other.
Suddenly Nero opened his mouth and gave a great roar, the loudest he had ever uttered. It shook the ground on which he stood. The trembling of the earth seemed to tickle the pads of skin and flesh of his paws, pads which were the same to him as your shoes are to you.
"Ha, that was a fine roar, Nero!" said his father. "Roar again!"
And Nero did, louder than at first.
"That's the way!" cried Mr. Lion. "That will tell the other jungle folk to keep out of our way when we are having a night-hunt."
And that, I suppose, is why lions roar. They do it to frighten away the other animals who might spoil their hunt in the jungle.
For the lion's voice, when he roars, is frightfully loud. There is no other animal who can make so much noise--not even the elephant, which is larger than ten lions. If you have ever heard a lion roar, even in his circus cage, or in a city park, you will never forget it.
And so Nero roared, and his father roared, and the other lions, all about them in the jungle, roared until there was a regular lion chorus, and the other beasts, hearing it, slunk back to their dens or caves, or crouched under fallen trees, and one after another said to himself:
"The lions are out hunting to-night. It is best for us to stay in until they have finished. Then it will be our turn."
And so you see how it is that the strength of a lion makes the other animals afraid when the big animals hunt. Elephants do not need to fear lions, for the big animals, with trunks and tusks, do not eat the same kind of food lions eat. Elephants live on grass, hay, palm-nuts and things that grow. But the lion eats only meat, and he would eat an elephant if he could get one, though it might take him a long while.
"Now for the hunt!" said Mr. Lion, as he led Nero into the jungle. "Tread softly. Sniff with your nose until you smell something worth hunting, and then spring on it."
Though lions, like cats, can see pretty well in the dark, they have to depend a great deal in their hunting on what they can smell with their nose, just as your dog can smell a bone, and tell, in that way, where he has buried it