to slits, but the lion, tiger and leopard draw their pupils up into little round holes. In that one thing the lion is more like boys and girls than pet kittens.
Put your finger in pussy's mouth. What sharp teeth she has. They pierce like the points of carpet tacks. When she licks your hand her tongue feels like a file. A lion's teeth are like daggers, and his tongue is so rough he can scrape bones clean with it. Lions lap water with their tongues, too. Pussy doesn't like to get her feet wet, and lions just hate water, except to drink. That is queer, for many of the wild cats love water. The tigers of India swim across small arms of the sea. They haunt river banks and swamps, wade in up to their necks to drink, wallow in the mud, then wash off and roll in the sand. This love of water gets them into trouble with crocodiles. The jaguar, or South American tiger, likes turtles and catches them by swimming.
All the wild cats wash their faces with their paws. Perhaps you have wondered why your big cat likes to go to a quiet, shady place and sleep a good deal in the daytime, and then prowl about and make dreadful noises at night. She learned that habit thousands of years ago when all cats were wild, and she never quite gets over it, no matter how tame she seems. She will try to hide her babies, too, On farms, where there are fine hiding places, mother cats will make a den under the barn floor, in the haymow, or in a hollow log up in the woods. If you try to follow her to find her kittens she will mislead you in the cleverest way. The mother lion carries her kittens by taking the loose skin at the back of the neck between her teeth, just as the house cat does.
The lion makes his den in a rocky cave hidden by bushes, on the edge of a wide sandy plain where many antelopes, deer, zebra and other grazing animals roam. In one thing he is better than the house cat. When he is about three or four years old, and has a short, fine silky mane, of which he is as proud as big brother is of his downy mustache, the lion picks out a mate to go to housekeeping. These two stay together just as human papas and mamas do, all their lives, and they sometimes live to be fifty years of age. When they find a house that suits them they don't like to move. You know tame cats like places better than they do people, and often refuse to go with the most loving little mistress to a new home.
There's one thing that lions can't do that cats can. They can't climb trees. But tigers, leopards, panthers and all the other big,
