202 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



longer remain unstudied, and unrevealed along the lines of 

 plain common-sense. 



The Ways of Crocodiles. The ways of crocodiles are 

 dark and deep; their thoughts are few and far between. Their 

 wisdom is above that of the tortoises and turtles, but below 

 that of the serpents. I have had field experience with four 

 species of crocodilians in the New World and three in the Old. 

 With but slight exceptions they all think alike and act alike. 



The great salt-water crocodile of the Malay Peninsula and 

 Borneo is the only real man-eater I ever met. Except under 

 the most provocative circumstances, all the others I have met 

 are practically harmless to man. This includes the Florida 

 species, the Orinoco crocodile, the little one from Cuba, the 

 alligator, the Indian gavial and the Indian crocodile (C. 

 palustris). 



The salt-water crocodile, that I have seen swimming out in 

 the ocean two miles or more from shore, is in Borneo a voracious 

 man-eater. It skilfully stalks its prey in the murky rivers 

 where Malay and Dyak women and children come down to 

 the village bathing place to dip up water and to bathe. There, 

 unseen in the muddy water, the monster glides up stealthily, 

 seizes his victim by the leg, and holding it tightly backs off 

 into deep water and disappears. The victims are drowned, not 

 bitten to death. 



I found in Ceylon that the Indian crocodile is a shameless 

 cannibal, devouring the skinned carcasses of its relatives 

 whenever an opportunity offered. 



The Florida crocodile is the shrewdest species of all those 

 I know personally. It has the strange habit of digging out 

 deep and spacious burrows for concealment, in the perpen- 

 dicular sandy banks of southern Florida rivers where the deep 

 water comes right up to the shore. Starting well under low- 

 water mark, the crock digs in the yielding sand, straight into 

 the bank, a roomy subterranean chamber. In this snug re- 

 treat he once was safe from all his enemies, until the fatal 



