46 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



the spot ; and many a shot bird thus disappears, as if 

 by magic, before the e5^es of the gunner. But he will 

 prefer your plump retriever, should he see him nearing 

 the duck as he comes up. A dear old spaniel of mine 

 named "Quail," possessed of an uncontrollable ''craze 

 after the deuks," had so many narrow escapes of this 

 sort that I never taught any of the four generations of 

 his descendants I have possessed to retrieve from water. 

 Although our crocodiles are thus little noxious to 

 life, and may even advance some claims to merit as 

 scavengers, it is not in human nature to refrain from 

 destroying so hideous a reptile when a chance occurs. 

 There is a spot in the gorge of the Marble Rocks where 

 such a chance is seldom wanting. A flat and slightly 

 hollowed rock-shelf at the water's edge invites to noon- 

 tide repose these unlovely monsters of the deep. Cold 

 weather and a warm sun seem to be the most favourable 

 conditions. The place is on the left bank, some quarter 

 of a mile above the rest-house ; and is marked by the 

 droppings of the brutes, and of the aquatic birds that 

 invariably watch over their slumbers. If now, as mid- 

 day approaches, you will take your rifle and cross over 

 below the house, and get you round to where a cleft in 

 the rocks commands the spot, and if the place has not 

 recently been much disturbed, you will shortly perceive 

 (if he is not there before you) the seeing and smelling 

 apparatus of one or more of the reptiles floating slowly 

 in from mid-stream, like two bungs out of a cask. 

 Nothing but experience will enable you to distinguish 

 them at this distance from the pieces of drift wood 

 always floating down the stream, so marvellously does 

 nature protect even the most loathsome of her pro- 

 ductions. The crocodile approaches the projected scene 



