CROCODILE CATCHING. 69 



shank, instead of at the end of the shank, as is the 

 case in the ordinary hook. The point of the hook was 

 not barbed, and the end of the shank was sharpened. 



The effect of this curious attachment is obvious : 

 supposing the bait to be swallowed, a strain on the 

 line would tend to pull the hook transversely across 

 the gullet of the crocodile; the point of the hook 

 would catch in some part of the throat, and, as soon 

 as this happened, the sharpened shank-point would 

 catch in the opposite side of the throat. An animal 

 thus hooked could only escape by breaking the line. 



" I brought fowls for bait because I was hurried. 

 White fowls are the best, for the crocodile can see 

 them farther, but if I had had time I would have shot 

 a monkey. There is nothing that a crocodile likes 

 better than one of the grey long-tailed kind. He sees 

 them playing and leaping in the mangrove-trees at 

 high tide, and trooping over the mud flats at low tide : 

 at all times they scream and scold and chatter at him, 

 for between the crocodile and the monkey there is an 

 old standing feud. It is seldom that a crocodile catches 

 a monkey, but when he does it is very sweet to him." 



Manap then took a fowl, which he had previously 

 gutted and half -plucked, and eyed it carefully, and, 

 after looking at it and at the hook from every point 

 of view, split it open down the breast. He then 

 buried the length of the hook in the incision he had 

 made. The bend of the hook fitted closely to the 

 curve of the fowl's rump, and the hook's point was 

 hidden under the wing, while the sharpened point 

 of the shank could be felt near the fowl's neck. With 

 some native fibre he then bound the bait as tightly as 



