166 Crocodiles. 



and Travayle of Sir John Maundeville Knight" 

 says : " In many places of Inde are many coco- 

 drilles that is, a manner of a long serpent. These 

 serpents sley men and eate them weping, and they 

 have no tongue." While Topsell writes, " There 

 are not many bruite beasts that can weepe, but such 

 is the nature of the Crocodile that to get a man 

 within his danger, he will sob, sigh, and weepe as 

 though he were in extremetie, but suddenly he 

 destroyeth him. Others say that the Crocodile 

 weepeth after he hath devoured a man." Both 

 Shakespeare and Spenser, be it observed, notice 

 this fable ; the former says : 



The mournful crocodile 

 "With sorrow snares relenting passengers ; 



while the latter in his " Faerie Queen " relates the 

 story in a passage much too long for quotation. 

 With the following extract from Topsell, which is 

 too good to be passed over, though it does not 

 relate to either of our fables, we must leave this 

 branch of our subject : " Some have* written that 

 the Crocodile runneth away from a man if he 

 winke with his left eye, and looke steadfastly 

 uppon him with his right eye, but if this be true, 

 it is not to be attributed to the vertue of the right 

 eye, but onely to the rarenesse of sight which is 

 conspicuous to the serpent from one eye." 



The position of the crocodile in the animal 

 kingdom was a terrible puzzle to naturalists of 

 old, and has, indeed, been but very recently 

 determined. Pliny and most of the mediaeval 



