52 LORICATA. 



of Nature," observes Prof. Jones, " the scavengers 

 are by no means the least important agents. In 

 hot climates, especially, where putrefaction ad- 

 vances with so much rapidity, were there not 

 efficient and active officers continually emj)loyed 

 in speedily removing all dead carcases and car- 

 rion, the air would be perpetually contaminated 

 with pestilential effluvia, and entire regions ren- 

 dered uninhabitable by the accumulation of 

 putrefying flesh. Perhaps, however, no localities 

 could be pointed out more obnoxious to such a 

 frightful cause of pestilence, than the banks of 

 tropical rivers — those gigantic streams, which, 

 pouring their waters from realm to realm, daily 

 roll down towards the sea the bloated remains 

 of thousands of creatures which taint the atmo- 

 sj^here by their decomposition."* 



Here, then, is the appointed dwelling-place of 

 the Loricata. Lurking in the dense reeds, or 

 tangled herbage that grows rank and teeming at 

 the edges of rivers in hot climates, or under the 

 mangroves that interweave their myriad roots in 

 arches above the water, or concealed among the 

 bleaching trunks and branches of trees that have 

 fallen into the stream, these huge rej)tiles watch 

 for the approach of a living prey, or feed at 

 leisure on the putrid carcases with which the 

 waters daily supply them. It is even affirmed 

 that they prefer a condition of putrescence in their 

 prey, and that their practice, when not pressed 

 by immediate hunger, is, on seizing a living prey, 

 to plunge into the stream in order to drown it, 

 afteB which, it is dragged away to some hole, and 

 stored until decomposition has commenced. 



* General Outline, 55d. 



