176 



CROCODILE. 



violent blow, which is invariably in the direction of 

 the water, and at the same time towards its own 

 mouth. Should the animal surprised be of large size, 

 such as an ox or a horse, the crocodile adopts another 

 manoeuvre, in seizing it by the nostrils, and forcibly 

 dragging it under the water to be drowned. When 

 a tortoise is seized, the crocodile raises its head above 

 water, and with the inconceivable strength of its jaws, 

 crushes the shell in pieces. Men, and particularly 

 negroes, are said to be its favourite prey, and it is 

 greedy after the flesh of dogs ; and hence, the negroes 

 that hunt the crocodile are accustomed to beat the 

 dogs on purpose that their howling may attract it 

 from its haunts. The prey being drowned, is con- 

 veyed to some sub-aquatic hole or receptacle, and 

 left to putrefy before it is devoured ; but the crocodile 

 cannot feed in the water ; it would then, as is usually 

 credited, experience the same fate as its victim ; 

 therefore, except small fishes, the prey is always 

 carried to the land. Its structure also is such, that it 

 must rise to the surface once in an hour, or hour and 

 a half, for breathing. Nothing that it once seizes can 

 escape ; it never quits its hold ; even strong levers 

 forced between the jaws for that purpose have proved 

 ineffectual ; and, shaking its prey to pieces, it is 

 swallowed without mastication. Much has been said 

 of the stratagems employed by the crocodile to seize 

 its prey ; that it lies like a log on the banks of rivers, 

 or floats inactive on the surface, and then springs 

 forward whenever the victim comes within its reach. 

 This may be partly true, though it appears under 

 many exaggerations ; for it is well authenticated, 

 that it remains motionless until considerable objects 

 are quite close and evidently within its reach, then 

 it leaps upon them. The agility of the crocodile is 

 not so great, even when in pursuit of prey, that a man 

 may not escape at tolerable speed, more especially 

 by frequent deviation from the straight path. The 

 blow with the tail, suddenly given, is principally to be 

 dreaded, and the irascibility of the animal when 

 attacked, or the female at the head of her young. 



It does not appear that the crocodiles are so numerous 

 in the lower part of the Nile as they were in ancient 

 times, and the few that do appear are now not much 

 dreaded there but farther up the river where the 

 climate is wanner. But Lord Prudhoe, while travel- 

 ling in Sennaar, between the black and white Nile, in 

 the averaged latitude of about 14 north, found that 

 they were much more formidable ; and during his 

 BOJOUfhJng in the country several of the natives were 

 carried oft' by them ; and the banks of the river were 

 in many places so musky in their smell as to be very 

 offensive. 



Crocodiles are oviparous, and the eggs are but 

 small in proportion to their size, not being quite so 

 large as those of a goose. They are, as is the case 

 with the eggs of reptiles generally, equally thick at 

 both ends, they are covered with an envelope which 

 hardens in the air, but it contains very little carbonate 

 of lime. The males are more numerous than the 

 females, and fierce battles ensue between them in the 

 pairing time. These battles of gallantry are generally 

 decided in the water, and they are accompanied by 

 the most dismal bellowing that can possibly be 

 imagined ; this noise is said to resemble that both of 

 the bull and the bittern, but to be much louder and 

 more husky and dismal than either. 



The female digs a cavity in the earth, in which she 

 places her eggs, in a circular form, in successive layers, 



and with portions of earth between, the whole being 

 afterwards covered up. 



This nest is generally placed in a dry hillock, and 

 the earth is gathered up, so that on the average, the 

 eggs are about ten inches below the surface. This 

 being done, the mother abandons them to be hatched 

 by the heat of the sun ; yet instinct prompts her 

 frequently to revisit the spot as the term of exclusion 

 approaches. She then testifies uncommon agitation, 

 roaming about the place and uttering a peculiar 

 growling, as if to awaken her hideous offspring to ani- 

 mation. The period of maturity being at length 

 attained, the nascent crocodiles answer to her solici- 

 tude by a kind of yelping like puppies. A hollow 

 murmur in return denotes her satisfaction, and she 

 hastens to scrape up the earth with such anxiety, that 

 several of the young are generally crushed under her 

 unwieldy body. Having withdrawn them from their 

 nest, the mother leads them straightway to the 

 neighbouring water; but now her utmost vigilance is 

 required for their preservation, for, unlike the instinct 

 with which she is animated, the male, silently approach- 

 ing, will frequently devour them before she is aware 

 of her loss. He perpetually seeks their destruction ; 

 and the watch of the female over her young i? pro- 

 tracted for three months from their first appearance. 

 An opinion is prevalent that the crocodile continues 

 growing during its whole existence, that it lives to a 

 great age, and that the utmost limits of its si/.e arc 

 scarcely known ; whence, in addition to well authen- 

 ticated instances of some being twenty-five or thirty 

 feet in length, others are reputed to attain the enor- 

 mous dimensions of fifty feet. Though we are not 

 enabled, from positive and conclusive evidence, either 

 to corroborate or to controvert these facts, the observ- 

 ations of the naturalist already cited, throw consider- 

 able light upon the subject. Where animals live in 

 a state of uninterrupted warfare, we are aware that 

 there is little probability of their either attaining their 

 extreme dimensions, or the utmost duration of life ; 

 and with respect to the latter, we are inclined to 

 ascribe a much longer period to those that dwell in 

 the waters than is usually allowed. The crocodile of 

 the Nile, banished to the most southern parts of 

 Egypt, is permitted to live undisturbed, and there it 

 is universally admitted to increase to the largest size, 

 far exceeding what is seen in other countries. 



Were not the fecundity of the more powerful and 

 destructive animals repressed, either by the attack of 

 open enemies, or their own liability to perish, they 

 would speedily overrun the earth. It is thus that 

 almost all are confined within moderate bounds ; that 

 destruction is ever commensurate with multiplication, 

 and sometimes by its preponderance entire species 

 become extinct. Many animals have inhabited this 

 island, of which there have only been fossil remains 

 for ages ; and an authentic record has preserved the 

 period when the last of a noxious race was destroyed. 

 In certain places, once infested by the crocodile, it is 

 now totally extirpated, and in others its appearance is 

 rare. In its earliest stage we have seen that it is liable 

 to perish, either from being crushed to death by the 

 female or devoured by the male. A species of 

 tortoise frequenting the Nile, makes incredible havoc 

 among the young. The hostility of the ichneumon 

 has been related from times of remote antiquity ; and 

 though we cannot agree that it proves destructive of 

 the crocodile itself, we at least know that it devours 

 the eggs. In this manner, the numbers of so formi- 



