I 



TICKLING A CROCODILE. 341 



and about thirty years ago, the inhabitants of one of the Feejee 

 Islands were equally astonished and alarmed at seeing a large 

 crocodile emerge from the lagune, and lazily creep on shore. 

 At first they took it for some marine deity ; but it soon proved 

 that its visit was not of a beneficent nature, as it seized and 

 devoured nine of them at various intervals. After many un- 

 availing attempts to destroy the monster, it was at length 

 caught with a sling passed over the bough of a large tree, the 

 other end of the rope being held at a distance by fourteen men 

 \vho lay concealed, while one of the party offered himself as a 

 bait to entice the reptile to run into the snare. Captain Fitzroy 

 ('Voyage of the Beagle'), who relates the fact, supposes that 

 the animal must have been drifted all the way from the East 

 Indies — a voyage which, in fact, is not more surprising than to 

 see a turtle land upon the shores of the North Sea, or a sperm 

 whale flounder about in the Thames. 



Like many other of the lower animals, the crocodile, when 

 surprised, endeavours to save himself by feigning death. Sir 

 Emerson Tennent relates an amusing anecdote of one that was 

 found sleeping several hundred yards from the water. ' The 

 terror of the poor wretch was extreme when he awoke and 

 found himself discovered and completely surrounded. He was 

 a hideous creature, and evidently of prodigious strength, had 

 he been in a condition to exert it ; but consternation com- 

 pletely paralysed him. He started to his feet, and turned 

 round in a circle, hissing and clacking his bony jaws, with his 

 ugly green eye intently fixed upon us. On being struck, he 

 lay perfectly quiet and apparently dead. Presently he looked 

 round cunningly, and made a rush towards the water ; but on 

 a second blow he lay again motionless. We tried to rouse him, 

 but without effect ; pulled his tail, slapped his back, struck his 

 hard scales, and teased him in every way, but all in vain : 

 nothing would induce him to move, till, accidentally, my son, 

 a boy of twelve years old, tickled him gently under the arm, 

 and in an instant he drew it close to his side, and turned to 

 avoid a repetition of the experiment. Again he was touched 

 under the other arm, and the same emotion was exhibited, 

 the great monster twisting about like an infant to avoid being 

 tickled.' 



