520 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914. 
of the dark than the baboon. Nothing will induce them to leave 
their sleeping-place before the dawn is well advanced, and they are 
always careful to be safe on the krans before the approach of night. 
And here all night long we heard their human-like lamentations as 
they searched the river banks for food, devouring everything and 
anything that was remotely entitled to the name. 
Where the crocodiles had disappeared to was at first an insoluble 
enigma. The few stagnant pools in the Limpopo, of course, swarmed 
with them, but this could not possibly account for the numbers that 
in rainy seasons rendered every pool in Magalakwen, Palala, Gaul, and 
the Crocodile dangerous. A possible solution was afforded while 
digging a hole in the sand for water half-way down the Magalakwen. 
In the center it had to be at least 6 feet deep in order to reach the 
water level, and that meant that it had to be at least 25 yards in 
circumference. Four and a half feet below the surface we came 
upon a little crocodile, 3 feet long, apparently dead. It was just 
below the level of the damp sand. Although apparently lifeless 
the body was quite limp and fresh. We also found a number of 
small fish known to the bushveld boers as ‘makriel.’’ They are the 
northern representative of the well-known barbel of the south. 
These, too, were apparently quite lifeless. I placed the fish in a 
bucket of water in direct sunlight and aerated it by pouring a stream 
from a kettle at intervals from a considerable height. In 10 minutes 
they began to show signs of life, and in a quarter of an hour they 
were Swimming about in the bucket apparently none the worse for 
their long sleep. The crocodile we revived within half an hour by 
placing it in a hole scooped in the sand under the shade of a tree 
and occasionally pouring a bucket of water over it. The moment it 
woke to life some strange instinct seemed to compel it to burrow down 
into the sand again. 
Judging from the spoor and from actual observation, it seemed 
that most of the animals still subsisting in this deadly waste had 
learned to dig for water in the river-bed. The most efficient diggers 
were the baboons and the warthogs, and my companion—an old 
hanter and clever veldman—pointed out an interesting fact to me: 
that every sounder of pigs was followed by a regular retinue of other 
animals all day long, apparently for the purpose of using their 
water-holes when thirst drove the warthogs to the river-bed to dig. 
One quite unexplainable thing observed during the height of 
the drought in certain parts of the Springbok Flats was that the 
ordinary white ants (wingless) came out of their holes in the middle 
of the day in vast numbers, and they would lie in the sun im a closely 
packed ball all day long. The ground next to such a ball was so 
hot that one could not stand contact with it with the bare hand for 
above two or three seconds. I was anxious to ascertain the tempera- 
