CROCODILES. 



461 



olopc nvv often soeii to disuppoar frotii view us they seek the water to avoid the 

 hoiinils, and tlie doys are especially palatable to the huge reptile. It is said that 

 the animals acquire a taste for human tiesh. In localities where tliey once caused 

 no great fear, on receiving tiie dead liodies of crinniials, they at length became so 

 ferocious as to be greatly dreaded. The nati\es kill tlieni by thrusting a barbed spear 

 into their si(h' as they lie inisuspeclingly on the baid<, or tiiey dig a ])it in some fre- 

 quented ]iath, into which the reptile falls as it Hees from the cries of the savages as 

 thev " beat the bush." 



Kit:. 'J(i(i. — Ci'tjfothlit.^ 



Mh UR£lf.XABEfiUhJ. 



Am ancient story, supposed for a long time to ije fabulous, is told bv Herodotus, 

 the verity of which has been established by the later naturalists. The ancient writer 

 said : " When the crocodile takes his food in tlie Nile, the inside of its mouth is'always 

 covered with a small fly. All birds, witli a single e.xception, flee from the crocodile, 

 but this one, the Nile bird, Trochijlus., far from avoiding it, flies towards the reptile 

 with tlie greatest eagerness and renders it a very essential service, livery time the 

 crocodile goes on shore, the Nile bird enters the mouth of the terrible animal and 



