104 



LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



upon vessels, and that, how little soever the gun- 

 wales may be raised above the water, nothing 

 is to be apprehended from their attacks. But he 

 advises the navigator to avoid thrusting his arms 

 or legs into the stream, or he will run the risk 

 of getting them snapped off by the sharp-pointed 

 teeth of the crocodiles. Very alert in the water, 

 which, he says, they cleave with rapidity, they 

 make, according to him, but slow progress on 

 dry land ; and were it not that their slime color 

 and the coat of mud with which they cover them- 

 selves in walking along the miry shores of the 

 Nile, disguise them so as to render them less per- 

 ceptible, and thus expose men to be surprised by 

 them, they are, he declares, by no means so dan- 

 gerous out of the watery element, in which they 

 are stronger and more at liberty. 



The portrait of the ichneumon " que les Egyp- 

 tiens nomment Rat de Pharaon," is given in the 

 Portraits d'Animaux,* with the following morsel 

 of poesy : 



Voy le portrait du Rat de Pharaon, 



Q,ui chasse aux rats, comme fait la Belette ; 



Au demeurant fort cauteleuse beste, 



Qui autrement est nominee Ichneumon. 



But not a word is said about the romance of its 

 leaping into the gaping mouths of crocodiles, glid- 

 ing into their bellies, and eating their way out of 

 the entrails of the reptiles, which the ancient au- 

 thors and many of the moderns loved to dwell 

 upon, but which Sonnini treats with the contempt 

 that it deserves. The natural food of the ichneu- 

 mons consists of rats, birds, eggs, and reptiles ; 

 and if some of them have been seen springing on 

 little crocodiles with fury when presented to them, 

 the act was the effect of their general appetite for 

 such game generally, and not of a particular an- 

 tipathy. It would, as Sonnini observes, be at 

 least equally reasonable to say that their mission 

 on earth was to prevent the too great propagation 

 of .chickens, to which they are far more hostile 

 than to crocodiles. In his time, and in more 

 than half of northern Egypt, that is to say, in 

 that part comprised between the Mediterranean 

 Sea and the city of Siout, ichneumons were very 

 common, although there were no crocodiles there ; 

 while they were more rare in Upper Egypt, 

 where the crocodiles were more numerous. The 

 great scourge of the crocodiles is a tortoise called 

 thirse by the Arabians one of the Potamians, 

 probably which, when the little crocodiles just 

 hatched repair to the river, springs upon them 

 and devours them. Persons of undoubted veraci- 

 ty at Thebais told Sonnini that out of fifty young 

 crocodiles, the produce of one hatching, seven 

 only had escaped the thirse, which is also a keen 

 devourer of the crocodile's eggs. Seven little 

 crocodiles, each eleven inches long, were brought 

 to the French traveller when he was at Kous. 

 Their teeth were already very sharp, and they 

 appeared to have come into the world with the 

 true crocodile spirit. The Egyptian who took 

 them said that there were about fifty of them to- 



* 1657. 



gether, but that it was impossible to catch them 

 all because the mother arrived unexpectedly, and 

 was eager to fly at him. From such small begin- 

 nings are these enormous monsters developed. 

 Sonnini saw at Negaude the skin of a crocodile 

 thirty feet long and four broad ; and he was as- 

 sured that some had been found in the Nile of the 

 length of fifty feet. One thing is certain, that 

 the number of teeth was as great in the newly- 

 hatched reptiles as in those that had attained to 

 that enormous size. 



Herodotus* gives an amusing account of the 

 bait with which the ancient fishermen bobbed 

 for crocodiles. Having well covered his hook 

 with the chine of a hog, he makes, according to 

 the historian, a cast into the middle of the river ; 

 and then producing a young live pig on the 

 bank, he beats it till he makes it squeal. The 

 crocodile, attracted by the piercing cry, goes in 

 the direction whence it proceeds, meets with the 

 baited hook, swallows it, is struck, in angling 

 phrase, and the tackle being none of the finest, is 

 drawn bodily to land. But when the crocodile is 

 there the angler would have but a hard time of it, 

 if he did not instantly set to work to plaster up 

 the eyes of his game with mud. When he has 

 done this, it is managed very easily ; but he has a 

 world of trouble before the operation is completed. 

 Hasselquist found a fishing-hook in the palate 

 of one which he dissected ; and the eggs which 

 he procured, larger than that of a hen but less 

 than that of a goose, covered with a hard crust, of 

 a rugged surface, and of a cloudy white color, 

 were taken out of a female thirty feet long. 



It was to be expected that the Roman popu- 

 lace, whose cry for novelty at the great shows 

 only equalled that for bread, would be familiar- 

 ized with the monsters of the Nile : 



Marcus Scaurus was the first man who, in his 

 plaies and games that he set out in his aedileship, 

 made a show of one water-horse and four croco- 

 diles, swimming in a poole or mote made for the 

 time during these solemnities.! 



This seems to have been a zoological exhibi- 

 tion, and nothing more ; but the crocodiles were 

 soon brought forward for more cruel purposes, and 

 to pander to the popular lust for blood. Augustus 

 turned six-and-thirty into the amphitheatre at once. 

 The shout raised by the thousands who beheld that 

 monstrous entrance, could only have been equalled 

 by the breathless silence with which they saw the 

 bold, calm gladiators advance upon their frightful 

 antagonists. The bestiarii, who were sworn to face 

 any living thing that their lord and master chose to 

 oppose to them, did their butcherly duty that day, 

 for not one of the thirty-six was left alive. 



Most probably the conquerors feasted on them 

 afterwards, for there was a saying that 



A crocodile is good meat, 

 All save the head and feet ; 



though a little musky, perhaps ; and the head was 



* Eut. 70. 



t Holland's Pliny. 



