The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-09-22
DOOM OF THE LION THROUGHOUT AFRICA An Unrelenting War on Him Waged by Settlers NONE IN THE FORESTS Commonest Where the Tsetse Fly Flourishes and White
 Men Cannot
 Live
NONE IN THE FORESTS
From the New York Sun.

the last century great area III Souln Africa, third as large as the United States. has been swept clear of him.
 The Dutch were in South Africa as far back as the time when our Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock. Mill lions of antelopes, zebras, giraffes and other food that the lion seeks lived on those grassy plans; and here the lion was pre-eminently the king of beasts.
 The Europeans undertook to herd sheep and cattle in the environs of their coast settlements, but the lion disputed their right. The garrison at the Cape Town fort and the farmers on the outskirts were stimulated to hunt the lion by govern ment premium of {5 for each one slain; but the lions were countless and the whites were few and no serious inroads were made upon the enemy.
 At last, says a writer in the Review of Reviews, a number of lions made bold one night to invade the fort itself and killed and partly devoured nine head of cattle before they were discovered and driven off. It became a question whether the whites could live in South Africa at all The government in 1894 raised the price of a slain lion to $25, and the money made in lion hunting stimulated pursuit that the coast settlements and the areas around them were at last fairly safe.
 But as cattle and sheep men pushed into the interior the work had to be done all over again. Early in the 18th century the premium paid for lions was still $15 a head. The colonists could not afford this tax and the burden was shared by the home government Then the British came in and the war was pushed with greater energy than ever.
 But what a struggle it was over a vast territory with lions in every covert. Up to 60 years ago no herds man or shepherd ever took his charge aield without an ammunition belt and a gun on his shoulder. About 1850 a lion was killed while enjoying the won derful sight of Cape Town spread out below him. The extermination of the lion In South Africa has been almost wholly the work of the last so years.
 Twelve hundred miles further north in British East Africa is the greatest center of lion hunting in the world.
 It is a region rich in the big game that the lion most relishes, but 1t is doubtful if it's attractiveness to hum ters will long endure because the whole region is needed for white enterprises. Thirty years ago no one dreamed that Africa contained such land as this directly under the equator.
 It stands from 5000 to 5000 feet above the sea, most of 1t great plain, to which white immigration is invited. Last year the farmers filled a large ship with a cargo of maize and sent it to Europe. Un- der the overhead sun they are raising European sheep for wool. They are inn porting the best European breeds of cat tie and crossing them with the best na- tive stock to the great improvement of the meat and milk industries.
 They have thriving towns and the Ugan- da railway gives them an outlet to the sea; and there are two things they do not want-one is lions and the other Is the great game which troops in thou sands over their grassy plains. On the other hand, the colonial governmnt is trying to save the millions of antelopes, zebras and other grazing animals by linn iting the number that can be killed and establishing reservations which hunters are not permitted to enter.
 But the ranehman and the small farmer are vehement in their opposi- ton to game protection. They say that where millions of grazing animals fat ten on the wide grass lands great numbers of cattle and sheep would thrive; that the government should not protect game in vast regions that eau be put to better use.
 They believe also that the finish oi the lion will come all the earlier through the new methods of hunting by means of dogs, which have resulted in the killing of as many as nine lions at the end of mornings gallop. Tho future of the lion in this paradise ot hunters is not brilliant. It bodes hin i'll that the Uganda railway passes right across the region where his lairs are most numerous. Railroads and lions are not compatible.
 There are a. few areas in Portuguese East Africa and Rhodesia where the lion is still numerous. The reason for his prevalence is interesting. The tsetse fly, whose bite is fatal to all domestic animals, flourishes in these areas. The natives will not live where, If they are herders, their cattle cannot exist White men have scarcely entered these districts. for they want beef and milk which cannot be produced there. Hut the regions abound with food for the lion and he lives and multiplies un molested by man.
 Curiousiy enough there is one place in the Sahara desert where the lion Is found seas of sand separating him from the common haunts of his kind His home is in the large oasis of Air. The anomaly is easily explained. Long ago more CO pious rainfall extended the grass lands of the Sudan to the north across re- zion tha. Is now a sand waste.
 This is proved by the ruins of dwell. ings and the graves and implements that are now strewn among the sands. IT that brighter era the lion and some of his food animals crossed the verdant land to Air and have continued to exist 1T region where there is grass for the grazers and meat for the lion.
 There is wide band across the Sudan where the lion is still frequent. Int northern edge of this band marks tho northern limit of the heavy summer rains and consequently of the abundant vege tation that supports large numbers o animals Parts of this great region ars already in process of development by thu whites
 Most of it. in Nigeria, is little soutf of the wide cotton region, believed tt be as large as our own cotton belt but 1t covers the horse raising regions of the central Sudan and includes thu highlands of Bauchi, where British companies are mining tin. It is nov known that this plateau is one of thu great future sources of tin supply More white men are moving into thi' belt every year and many parts of i are no longer a safe home for the lion The animal. as far as we know. hal | never lived in two distinctive types O African lands He has never beer found in the great equatorial forest
 and none or very few of the creatures he kills ever enter these drenched ant darkened areas. No lions. therefore are ever seen in Liberia, the Gold coas
 or other colonies fronting on the north
 ern shores of the Gulf of Guinea, no
 in the vast forest area extending iron l the upper Congo almost to the Grea
 Lakes and the Nile.
 It is said of these forests that tn, value of the fine timber, barks and es