192 JOURNAL OF THE TRINIDAD 



the skin and not the animal itself which is measured, and the 

 consequence is we are, in after years, asked to believe the most 

 astonishing tales as to the size of these wonderful creatures. 

 Old men tell us frequently that in their young days the deer 

 were much larger and the peccaries fiercer than they are in 

 these degenerate times and it seems as if in the majority of cases 

 time has not only mellowed but exaggerated their reminiscences. 

 Probably, if the real facts could be ascertained, we should find 

 that the tremendous animals which were killed by our fore- 

 fathers were very ordinary brutes after all. It is my intention 

 to record a few examples of this tendency to exaggeration which 

 I have come across, not only in books but under my own 

 observation. One of the first instances of this was the remark- 

 able story told me by some school fellows of the repulse of a 

 fierce yellow animal with gleaming teeth and arched back, of the 

 dimensions of a small donkey, which attacked them in a country 

 road. A further search resulted in the death of the animal 

 under the stick of an excited school-boy and the monster turned 

 out to be a poor ferret which had escaped from a rabbi tting 

 party and finding that it was impossible to gain a livelihood 

 with a sewn-up mouth, had on hearing human voices, come out 

 of its hiding place to dumbly ask relief. But my boy friends 

 were not a whit more prone to exaggeration than are many 

 travellers and hunters, grown men though they be. Lions have 

 been said to measure 14 and 15 feet in length. Mr. Selous says 

 six full grown male lions' skins pegged out measured 10ft. 3 in.; 

 10 ft. 6 in.; 10 ft. 9 in.; 10 ft, 10 in. ; 9 ft. 7 in. ; and 11 ft. 1 in. ; 

 but the biggest lion before it was skinned measured barely 10 ft. 

 Mr. Blanford states that male tigers rarely measure more than 

 6|- feet from the tip of the nose to the root of the tail. But 

 there are unreliable records of tigers of 14 and even 15 feet. 

 The elephant is another animal about which there is a great 

 deal of exaggeration. It is said that some of these creatures reach 

 the height of 12 feet, and there is no doubt some ground for 

 the assertion but sportsmen are fond of estimating the size of 

 elephants in their native forests as being as a rule about 12 feet. 

 It has, however, beer, conclusively proved of late years that 9 feet 

 is the average height of male and 8 feet for female Indian 

 elephants. The African species, however, attains a rather more 

 imposing average. With regard to the size of reptiles and 

 especially those with which I am most familiar the stories are no 

 less fabulous. A few days ago a snake was killed at Maraval 

 and the newspapers gravely informed us that it was 16 feet in 

 length. I went to see this wonderful snake and as I went I 

 confess I positively mourned because it had not been my lot to 

 get possession of it alive and unhurt. But I found that the 

 skin stretched to its utmost extent only measured 18 spans; a 



