NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 319 



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- 

 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 beginnings are these 

 enormous monsters developed. Sonnini saw at Negaude 

 the skin of a crocodile thirty feet long and four broad ; 

 and he was assured 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 crocodile. Hav- 

 ing well covered his hook with the chine of a hoe\ 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 



* Eut. 70. 



