318 Crocodile-Birds. 



a les engloutir, mais se sentant pique au palais 

 (Tune dure & poignante epine (que 1'oyseau a sur 

 le sommet de la tete) il est cotraint de desserrer, 

 dormant lieu a la fuitte de 1'oyseau, & avenat 

 q ' j'ea puisse recouvrer un, je raconteray cette 

 histoire plus surernent, & a la verite." Again, 

 Paul Lucas, who wrote in 1719, though by no 

 means an exact author or worthy to be too 

 implicitly believed, distinctly says that he saw 

 close to his boat some birds " like a lapwing, and 

 near it in bigness," which went " into the 

 crocodiles' mouths or throats . . . and after 

 they had stayed a little while the crocodiles shut 

 their mouths, and opened them again soon after to 

 let them go out." He was told by the people that 

 the birds in question (f feed themselves on what 

 remains between this animal's teeth by picking 

 them j and, as they have a kind of spur, or very 

 sharp thorn, in the tops of their wings, they prick 

 the crocodile, and torment him when he has shut 

 his mouth, till he opens it again, and lets them out ; 

 and thus they secure themselves from the danger 

 they were in." And he adds the suggestion that, 

 " likely these are the birds which Pliny calls 

 Trochilos." This last story told to Lucas by the 

 people of his time is very interesting, as it agrees 

 exactly in all its details with an account given by 

 Dr. Leith Adams, of which he says : " This 

 addition to the old story was given to me on good 

 authority, as being very generally believed by the 

 Nile boatmen." 



