55 



THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 



CROCODILES AND ALLIGATORS, WITH YOUNG 



Notwithstanding their proverbially irascible dispositions, these reptiles, of all ages and dimen- 

 sions, herd together on the most amiable terms 



The method adopted in 

 Queensland and North 

 Australia for capturing these 

 destructive monsters is that 

 of a running noose, so at- 

 tached to a suitably flexible 

 mangrove tree growing in the 

 vicinity of its nocturnal runs 

 as to constitute a gigantic 

 spring-trap. A dead carcase 

 or other suitable bait is added 

 to lure the animal to its 

 doom. The crocodiles thus 

 caught are alive and uninjured, 

 and can be dispatched or 

 reserved for menagerie exhi- 

 bition. A somewhat amusing 

 incident attended the trans- 

 port of a " reprieved " captive 

 by steamship from Cairns to 

 Brisbane, Queensland, a few 

 years since. In the dead of 



night, when all but the watch and engineer had retired to rest (they have to anchor and lay-to 

 at night in the Great Barrier Reef channels), the saurian managed to free himself from his 

 bonds, and started on a voyage of discovery around the decks. Arriving at the stoke-hold, he 

 either incontinently stumbled into it, or descended of malice prepense, sniffing the chance of 

 a supper or a good joke at the engineer's expense. Anyway, the engineer was aroused from his 

 peaceful dozings with the impression that the last day of reckoning had arrived, and, rushing 

 up the hatchway, awakened the whole ship's strength with his frantic outcries. 



The NILE CROCODILE, the most familiar form in European menageries, and once abundant 

 throughout Egypt to the Nile's delta, has now retired to the upper reaches of that great 

 river. It never attains to the dimensions of the estuarine form. By the ancient Egyptians, 

 as is well known, this species 

 was pampered and worshipped 

 with divine honours while 

 living, and after death em- 

 balmed and preserved in the 

 catacombs. 



Other noteworthy croco- 

 diles, of which space will allow 

 only of the mention of their 

 names, are the AMERICAN or 

 ORINOCO CROCODILE, and the 

 LONG-SNOUTED CROCODILE 

 of West Africa, which distantly 

 approach to the LONG- 

 SNOUTED GAVIAL or GARIAL 

 of India, in which the snout 

 is elongated in a beak-like flut > */**"' D. c*r B , , ? .] \_phnad.ifhit 



manner, and armed with close A CROCODILE FROM SOUTHERN UNITED STATES 

 rows of long, recurved teeth, _. , 



Sneriallv ariantorl fXr ,-fe of crocodiles, as compared -with those of alligators, are much less uniform in liu 



specially adapted lor its ex- ana - character 



