118 NATURAL HISTORY, 



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bones of the arm, doing little hurt. When struck or startled in the 

 water, they will sometimes leap forwards, three or four feet from 

 the surface, like a salmon, and once 1 saw one, shot through the 

 heart on shore, literally stand on the end of his tail for a second, 

 and fall backwards stone dead. They are not heavy animals ; 

 the largest I ever weighed, a female, 8 feet long, was only 100 lbs. 

 in weight, though full of eggs. They are not of much use when 

 you have got them. The bleached skull makes a ghastly tropin^ 

 and the skin a very ughy one ; but I once got two very handsome 

 shields made of crocodile skins at Ahmedabad. Here I may 

 remark that I have never got the traditional bangles from the 

 stomach of any crocodile. I have got sticks ; what the brute ate 

 them for I can't imagine. The handsome leather used in Europe 

 for cigar cases, bags, and so forth is all made of the skins of young 

 American alligators ; the art has not found its way here yet. Natives 

 use the teeth and shields for charms and the oil for medicine, and 

 some low castes eat the flesh and eggs. There used to be a small 



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tribe in the Tapti valley who devoted their lives to hunting crocodiles, 

 and showed great pluck and skill in it. They used nets, nooses and 

 broad-bladed pikes (not harpoons), and always cut the tail with 

 an axe as soon as possible, — a trick known to other natives besides 

 them. Crocodiles are commonly supposed only to crawl, but the 

 young of C. palustris can walk and even run. A recent observer has 

 noted the same in Ceylon. I have twice kept young crocodiles alive ; 

 they were savage and sulky, refused food, and threw it up when 

 administered by force. 



Of other water lizards we have only Varanus draccena, the Ghorpur, 

 which, however, chiefly comes under notice when out of the water, 

 of which it is very independent. It is lucky that Ghorpurs don't 

 get to be much more than four feet long, for they are very active 

 and greedy, and I have seen one much shorter than that wage a good 

 fight with a small terrier dog. They will eat any animal that they 

 can overpower and swallow, up to young ducks, and I have no 

 doubt that they would eat the old ducks, too, if they could either 

 swallow them whole or carve them in any fashion. They destroy 

 eggs of all sorts, but T don't quite understand how. They don't 

 swallow them whole, for the shells are left. 



Young Ghorpurs are among the various lizards, supposed to be 

 venomous and called " Biscobra" in this region. The Biscobra of 

 Sind is an Eublepharis, according to Mr. Murray, an ugly creature 



