574 



CROCUS 



CROFTER 



it has survived its youth. Some two or three score 

 of eggs, with delicate rough limy shells, about the 

 size of those of geese, are laid in sandy cavities in 

 the bank. The young crocodiles are often happily 

 destroyed by the ichneumon, and by a species of 

 lizard. The adult crocodile lives in amiable partner- 

 ship with a little bird (Pluvianus cegyptius). As 

 Herodotus relates, this watcher warns the crocodile 

 by its cry when danger threatens, and it also cleans 

 its body of small animals which fix themselves there. 

 The crocodile was worshipped and even mummified 

 by the ancient Egyptians, and it occasionally bore 

 a part in the Roman gladiatorial combats. It is now 

 hunted for the perfume of its musk-glands, and 

 also for its skin and fat. Crocodile-hide has lately 

 increased in value as an article of commerce. The 

 eggs are esteemed as dainty morsels. The most 

 widely distributed species is C. biporcatus, or por- 

 osus. It occurs from the Mascarene to the Fiji 

 Islands, from Farther India to Corea, and also on 

 the north coast of Australia. It lives not only in 

 fresh water, but ventures sometimes into the sea. 

 A very large specimen in the British Museum mea- 

 sures 17J feet in length. C.frontatus, in equatorial 

 West Africa ; C. acutus, in the north-west of South 

 America, in Central America, and in the West 

 Indies ; C. cataphractus ( often placed in a special 

 genus, Mecistops ), from the west coast of Africa, 

 are other important species. 



History. These giant reptiles, like other large 

 forms, have in recent ages been continuously on 

 the wane. They date from the Triassic period 

 (Belodon, Parasuchus, and Stagonolepis the last 

 from the Elgin sandstones). In the Jurassic age 

 they are very numerous, forty species having been 

 recorded from British strata alone. In the Chalk, 

 the first Crocodilia with anteriorly concave verte- 

 brae appear in contrast to the Triassic, the Jurassic, 

 and in part the Cretaceous forms, which had bicon- 

 cave vertebrae. Among these Cretaceous forms 

 are true Crocodiles and Gavials, which are also 

 abundant in Tertiary strata. Professor Huxley has 

 worked out the ' almost unbroken ' series of grada- 

 tions from the ancient Triassic forms down to the 

 modern crocodiles, but where this series takes 

 origin among the ancient reptiles is still obscure. 



See ALLIGATOR, GAVIAL, REPTILES ; also Dumeril et 

 Bibron, Erpetologie Generate (Paris, 1834-54) ; J. E. Gray, 

 Synopsis of Recent Croco- 

 dilians (Trans. Zool. Soc. 

 Lond. vi. 1867); A. Heil- 

 prin, Distribution of Ani- 

 mals (Inter. Sc. Series, 

 1887, pp. 327-30); C. K. 

 Hoffman, Bronn's Thier- 

 reich, vi. ; Huxley, Ana- 

 tomy of Vertebrates (1879) ; 

 Journ. Linn. Soe. iv. ( 1860), 

 &c. ; Nature, xxxiii. ( 1885- 

 86), p. 331; A. Strauch, 

 Synopsis der lebenden 

 Krokodiliden ( Mem. Acad. 

 St Petersburg, x. 1866). 



CrOCUS, a very 

 beautiful genus of. Iri- 

 daceae, all palsearctic, 

 and particularly abun- 

 dant in the Mediter- 

 ranean countries and 

 Asia Minor. Crocuses 

 have long been culti- 

 vated in flower-gardens, 

 particularly C. vernus, 

 the purple crocus, with 

 . its many violet, white, 

 Spnng Crocus ( Crocus vernus). or stl ip e d varieties ; 



and C. luteus, and other 



yellow species ; all so welcome in early spring. The 

 saffron crocus ( C. sativus, see SAFFRON ) and other 



species flower in autumn. These must not be con- 

 fused with the meadow saffron, often called autumn 

 crocus (Colchicum, q.v. ), which is a liliaceous plant, 

 from which the true crocuses can at once be distin- 

 guished by their inferior ovary, and three instead of 

 six stamens. Bulbocodium vernum is a pretty spring 

 flower, also much resembling crocus, but closely 

 akin to colchicum. Two species of crocus occur wild 

 in England, C. nudiflorus and C. vernus, but the 

 latter at least is merely naturalised. The flowers 

 of one or two species are fragrant. Owing to the 

 shortening and thickening of the stem, the ovary 

 is subterranean, hidden among the leaf-bores, but 

 in ripening it grows out upon a long thin pro- 

 cumbent pedicel, and thus deposits its seed at a 

 sufficient distance from the parent plant. The 

 thickened axis is a Corm (q.v.). It is necessary 

 frequently to take up crocuses and plant them 

 anew, on account of the manner in which the 

 corms multiply. See CORM ; and Mard, Mono- 

 graph of the Genus Crocus (1887). 



Crocus OF ANTIMONY is the oxysulphide of 

 Antimony (q.v.). Crocus of Mars is the finely 

 divided red oxide of iron. 



CrcBSUS, the last king of Lydia, succeeded his- 

 father, Alyattes, in 560 B.C. He made the Greeks 

 of Asia Minor his tributaries, and extended his. 

 kingdom eastward from the JKgean to the Halys. 

 From his conquests, his mines, and the golden 

 sand of the Pactolus, he accumulated so much 

 treasure that his wealth has become a proverb. 

 He gave himself up in his court at Sardis to a life 

 of pleasure and sumptuous extravagance, deemed 

 himself the happiest man in the world, and was. 

 displeased when Solon, on a visit to his court, told 

 him that no man should be called happy till his. 

 death. He soon found how uncertain was a happi- 

 ness such as his ; for his beloved son Atys was killed 

 while hunting, and there was left to him only one 

 son, who was dumb ; whilst in his war with Cyrus, 

 he was totally defeated, his kingdom conquered, 

 and himself made prisoner and condemned to be 

 burned (546). At the funeral pyre, his repeated 

 exclamation of ' O Solon ! ' struck the conqueror,, 

 who, when told the reason of it, spared his life and 

 treated him with great kindness. As to his death,, 

 nothing is known. 



Croft, WILLIAM, musician, born in Warwick- 

 shire in 1677, was a chorister in the Chapel Royal, 

 of which he became joint-organist in 1704, and sole 

 organist in 1707. In 1708 he succeeded his old 

 teacher, Dr Blow (q.v.), as organist of West- 

 minster Abbey and choirmaster of the Chapel 

 Royal ; and in 1713 he took the degree of Mus. 

 Doc. at Oxford. From 1704 Croft wrote a number 

 of anthems for state ceremonies and public thanks- 

 givings, thirty of which appeared in two folio 

 volumes in 1724 ; and it is by these that he is now 

 chiefly remembered. He died in 1727. 



Crofter. The term crofter is commonly used 

 in Scotland to designate a small tenant of land who 

 derives a substantial portion of his livelihood from 

 cultivation or the raising of live-stock. By the 

 Crofters' Holdings Act of 1886, it is defined to 

 mean the tenant of a holding who resides on hi& 

 holding, the annual rent of which does not exceed 

 30 in money, and which is situated in a crofting 

 parish. 



Crofters may be broadly divided into two classes : 



( 1 ) Those who occupy arable land in separate 

 tenancy, and mountain pasture in joint tenancy ; 



(2) those who occupy land in separate tenancy 

 only. The first class may be denominated ' town- 

 ship crofters,' the second 'independent crofters.' 

 The township crofters are by far the more numerous. . 

 class, so much so that the joint tenancy of pasture 

 is a characteristic feature of crofting life. They 



