At the zoological gardens at Perth, Western Australia, there recently took place a fearful battle between a lioness and a tiger. An eyewitness says the scene was terrifying.
    Seizing the lioness by the throat, the tiger’s teeth tore threw the flesh, severing the windpipe and lacerating the neck frightfully. He dragged her round the cage and on one occasion threw her right over his back. The strength of the tiger can be gauged by the fact that the lioness is estimated to have weighed quite two hundredweight. Mr. La Souef, the director of the gardens, says that with the strength he displayed during the fight the tiger would be capable of taking a full grown horse in his mouth and carrying it away.
    The struggle lasted twenty minutes, and it was impossible for the director and head keeper, who witnessed the affair, to separate the enraged beasts. A hose was played with its full force in the faces of the animals, but to no avail. The noise and excitement were tremendous. The lioness showed great pluck and fought with all her strength, but the tiger was her master. Eventually, by dint of beating him with a stick and shouting, the tiger was induced to drop his prey and crawled into an inner cage, where he was promptly isolated.
    The lioness died hard and almost at the last used her remaining strength to bite through a piece of stout board which Mr. le Souef tried to pass under her head in order to relieve her breathing.
    The tiger bore few marks of the encounter, although he received some terrible blows. According to an eyewitness, each one would have been sufficient to smash in the head of a man.
    Half an hour after the tiger had been driven away the lioness died.
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