A SCRIMMAGE OF LIONS.

Captive lions, like fire flames, are fine things when under control, but when once they get the upper hand then indeed they are terrible. In her book, "Behind the Scenes with Wild Animals," Ellen Velvin describes a battle between a number of these brutes which took place in a showroom at Richmond, Virginia. It came off at a rehearsal, so that the public lost the chance to see it.

Only one man was concerned in the fight. That was Captain Bonavita, who had managed twenty-seven lions at one time. The cause of the fight was the arrival of newcomers from their native jungles.

When the arena was ready for the rehearsal, Bonavita had considerable trouble in getting the animals out, and when the first one finally appeared, it was not in the slow, stately manner in which he usually entered, but in a quick, restless way, which showed that he was in an excitable state. He was followed by seventeen others, all in the same nervous condition.

Instead of getting on the pedestals in their usual way, the lions, with one exception, a big, muscular fellow, began to sniff at the corners of the arena, where the newcomers had been exercising, and every moment added to their rage. Their fierce natures were excited by jealousy, so that when one lion presumed to go over to a corner and follow up the sniffing of another, the first one turned upon him and bit him savagely. The other promptly retaliated, and in the twinkling of an eye they were fighting fiercely.

The temper of the others flashed up like gunpowder, and almost instantly seventeen lions were engaged in a wild, free fight.

The one big fellow who had climbed on his pedestal when he entered still sat there, but at this moment the remaining nine lions appeared in the arena, followed by Bonavita.

The animals rushed forward into the battle; the big lion with an ugly snarl leaped from his pedestal into the thick of the fray, and in an instant twenty-seven lions were fighting with teeth and claws. In the midst of it all stood one man, calm, self-possessed, but with every nerve and muscle at their highest tension, for he knew better than any one else that his life hung in the balance.

Bonavita vainly tried to regain mastery over the fighting beasts. The lions were no longer the puppets of a show; they were the monarchs of the wild, turbulent and savage.

Seeing his power gone, Bonavita did his best to save his own life. He succeeded in getting out, thanks to his wonderful nerve—for he had to jump over the backs of the fighting animals, and in doing so he received a deep wound in the shoulder.

There was nothing to be done but to let the lions fight it out, which they did. For nearly two hours that awful battle raged; but, when the lions were exhausted, Bonavita, wounded as he was, went in and drove them into their cages.

Many of the lions after this terrible fight were seriously injured, and had to be treated for wounds, cuts, and tears; but they had fought themselves out, and the next week they went through their performances as mildly as kittens.