44 The Alligator and Its Allies 



man, to whom it is seldom or never dangerous. 

 Its Indian name, gharial, from which its generic 

 name has been corrupted, means fish-eater, since 

 its food consists, it is said, largely if not entirely 

 of fish. 



Considering its huge size and the character of 

 its jaws and teeth as shown in Figures 13 and 14, 

 it is fortunate that it prefers fish to human flesh. 



Anderson (2) describes the eggs and young of the 

 Indian gavial. He found forty eggs in a nest of 

 sand; they were in two layers, with a foot of sand 

 between them. The young were 15.8 inches long 

 at hatching. He says: "The young run with 

 amazing rapidity the moment they are out of the 

 shell. . . . Some of them actually bit my fingers 

 before I had time to remove the shell from their 

 bodies." The following quotation from Oldenburg 

 (46), for which I am indebted to Dr. Hussakof, 

 is perhaps the earliest reference to the egg of the 

 American alligator. It also mentions the habit 

 that is practiced by some of the recent Crocodilia 

 of swallowing stones to aid in digestion, as was 

 apparently done by some of the large extinct 

 reptiles. 



"The eggs of Crocodiles and Alligators are little 

 bigger than a Turkey's. I thought to bring one to 

 England, but it was lost. I never broke any to 

 see the Yolk and White; but the Shell is as firme 

 and like in shape to a Turkey's, but not spotted. 

 I inquired into the Stone in the Stomach of a 



