EXKMIES OF THE CROCODILE. 309 



not to deplore the loss of more tlian one of its inhabitants from 

 tlie insidious attack of the crocodile. 



According to the natives, the liideous reptile possesses a true 

 fiiend in a small bird {Hyas jEgyptlacus\ called by the Arabs 

 Khafihr-el-Timsach, or the 'crocodile's guardian' — a not in- 

 appropriate name, though the bird performs tlie part of a 

 guardian not from any friendly feeling but accidentally. It 

 lives on the islands and flat banks of the Nile and its tribu- 

 taries, and being extremely swift has no reason to fear the 

 crocodile. It runs without the least liesitation over the back 

 of tlie sleeping monster, feeds on the leeches and water-insects 

 that may have settled there, and seems to consider it as harm- 

 less as a log of wood. Its habit of uttering a piercing cry at 

 tlie sight of man betrays his approach to the crocodile, who 

 generally awakes and creeps into the water. 



The young of the crocodiles have no less numerous enemies 

 than those of the snakes. Many an egg is des,troyed in the 

 hot sand by small carnivora, or birds, before it can be hatched ; 

 and as soon as the young creep out of the broken shell, and 

 instinctively move to the waters, the herons, cranes and other 

 L>ng-legged wading birds gobble up many of them, so that 

 their span of life is short indeed. In the water they are not 

 only the prey of various sharp-toothed fishes, but even of the 

 males of their own species, while the females do all they can to 

 protect them. Even man not only kills the crocodile in self- 

 defence, or for the sake of sport, but for the purpose of regaling 

 upon its flesh. In the Siamese markets, crocodiles, Jarge and 

 small, may be seen hanging in the butchers' stalls ; and Captain 

 Stokes,* who more than once supped off alligators' steaks, in- 

 forms us that the meat is by no means bad. 



According to one of those zoological fables which by frequent 

 repetition usurp tlie authority of facts, the Ichneumon or 

 Pharaoh's Rat, a small animal closely resembling the weasel 

 tribe, is supposed to be the most dangerous enemy of the full 

 grown crocodile. It is said to creep into the maw of the un- 

 wieldy reptile when asleep, to penetrate into its stomach, to 

 tear its heart, and then with its sharp teeth to cut its way out 

 of the dead Leviathan's body. In plain truth the Ichneumon 



* ' Discoveries in Australia.' 

 z 2 



