Page 17 - Third Book of Reading Lessons

16 THIRD BOOK OF
3. e seaman yielded to her obvious desire, and she led him some little distance, till, near the ot of a tall tree, she stopped and looked up, with plaintive cries, into its branches. The sailor, thus directed, looked into the tree, and soon discovered, at a con­ siderable height, an immense ape, dandling and play­ ing with a cub lion, which he had carried thither r his amusement. The wants and wishes of the lioness were now easily understood.
4. The lion species, though usually reckoned among the species of cat, di ers absolutely om it in this as in many other partic ars, that it cannot ascend a tree; a distinction which ought to satisfy us at once of the error of those who talk to us of lions in America, where, in reality, there is no lion, and where the puma and jaguar, which they call lions, so readily ascend trees.
5. But equally in vain would it have been r the sailor to climb a er the cub, for the ape would have enjoyed the olic, by leaping with its prey om branch to branch; so the only chance was, to apply the axe at the bottom of the tree. To work, there­
re, he went; the lioness, which had seen other trees lled by the axe of the stranger, standing by, and impatiently awaiting the event.
6. The ape kept his seat till the tree ll, and then fell with it; and the lioness, the moment the robber reached the ground, sprang upon him with the swift­ ness and sureness of a cat springing upon a mouse, killed him, and then taking her cub in her mouth, walked contentedly away om the bene ctor, to whose skill and iendly assistance she bad made. her appeal.
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ONDERS.