AGE OF CHINESE ALLIGATOR 



age ; indeed, its capacity for longevity has given rise 

 to a proverbial expression comparable to Methusaleh 

 or Old Parr among ourselves. The Chinese zoologists, 

 or curiosity-mongers, to use a more descriptive term, 

 variously termed the N'Go a fish, a dragon, and a 

 tortoise. They prized it in medicine, and Marco Polo 

 himself was gravely of opinion that its merits were 

 high ; the gall he recommended as a cure for the bite 

 of a mad dog. But its usefulness is by no means con- 

 fined to this disease, for, like certain much-advertised 

 drugs among ourselves, there appears to be no ill that 

 Chinese flesh is heir to that the carcass of this beast 

 will not furnish remedies for. As alligators and croco- 

 diles go, this Chinese representative of the family is 

 not large ; it is a dwarf beside the twenty-foot long 

 crocodiles, and still more so when compared with the 

 huge extinct Siwalik crocodilian, which measured 

 fifty feet from snout to end of tail. Of other croco- 

 diles and alligators plenty of examples are certain to 

 be in the Reptile House. 



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