To many these paintings may seem unusual in that they depict a Lion and a Tiger in combat, two species of big cat that are only thought to be from two seperate continents. The Asiatic Lion a closer cousin to the Tiger was quite common in the 19 th century and was distributed throughout North-Western and Central India. The memoirs of a mid 19th Century big-game hunter in India recorded that a certain "Sportsman" shot more than 300 Lions 50 of which were in the neighbourhood of Delhi. By the early 1880's there were no Asiatic Lions in India, except in the Gir Forest of Junagudh. The Last Census conducted in 1985 puts the population in the Gir Forest to around 300.