116 NATURAL HISTORY. 



who had probably often enjoyed the like before, under the belief that 

 it was made of a sea-turtle. They are put into wells and cisterns in the 

 same way as the terrapins, and for the same reasons Trionyx javanicus 

 is our commonest species, and Chitra indica the largest. I have seen 

 a bullet glance off the shell of the latter, but it was fired at a consider- 

 able angle. The turtle was afterwards killed by another bullet, fired 

 almost vertically down upon the centre of the back, which passed 

 completely through him. These fresh-water tortoises and turtles, if 

 turned on their backs, speedily recover their proper position, using 

 their long necks and heads in doing so. 



The crocodile (Mahratta " magar" lt suswar") is only locally 

 common in this area, very seldom seen in the tanks and smaller 

 rivers, but occupying particular deep reaches in the great rivers, 

 often in considerable numbers. These are the places to which the 

 larger fish and the turtles (crocodiles are very fond of turtles) retire 

 when the rivers shrink in the dry weather, and where, accordingly, 

 food is plentiful. As far as I am aware, there is only one species 

 known here, viz., Crocodilus palustris. I have measured specimens 

 from the Upper Tapti and Bhima 10 feet long, and I do not think 

 that that size is often exceeded here. And though I have heard many 

 crocodile yarns, I do not myself know a single well -authenticated 

 instance of a crocodile's killing a human being in the Deccan or 

 Khandesh. Once, in 1875, I remarked as much to a native official, 

 who immediately said that a man had been killed by one in his 

 tl Taluka " (or barony) " last year." Being asked for details, he gave 

 them, upon which I recognised the story as one I had heard in the 

 same place in 1872 as of tl last year." I dare say that crocodile is 

 killing that man " last year" to this day. The other form of crocodile- 

 saga always refers to the " next village," and when you get there, 

 to the next, and so on, slipping away before the inquirer like the foot 

 of a rainbow before the infant gold-seeker. I believe that the larger 

 and more dangerous Crocodilus porosus is found in the lower waters 

 of most of the great Deccan rivers beyond our boundary. The 

 differences, setting aside size and temper, are that C. palustris has 

 two sets of shields on the back of his neck, arranged in two 

 groups of four and six respectively (the four in front), six shields in 

 each transverse row of the middle of the back, and sixteen such rows 

 of dorsal shields altogether to the root of the tail. But in Crocodilus 

 porosus the " anterior nuchal plates" are none, or only 2, and then 

 rudimentary, that is, his cousin has a front set of 4 plates on the back 



