142 THE WILDERNESS AND JUNGLE 



tion of a creature's habits from its appearance 

 was at one time very popular in books, but it 

 may have its drawbacks when taken too liter- 

 ally, for, as a matter of fact, gharials have 

 been actually seen to carry off both men and 

 cattle. Practice in such cases is better than 

 theory, and it is best to give these so-called 

 fish-eaters a wide berth, since there can be 

 very little satisfaction to remember, at the 

 moment of being seized, that, with a beak of 

 that shape, the naughty gharial ought to have 

 been content with fish. In the same way it is 

 usual to insist in print that the heloderm of 

 Arizona and neighbouring states is the only 

 venomous lizard in the wide world. It may 

 be, though, curiously enough, grave doubts 

 have recently been thrown on the danger of 

 its bite. The fact, however, remains that there 

 is a strong feeling among the natives of India 

 that a lizard, known as the goisamp, also 

 gives a deadly bite. As the natives are not 

 always misinformed in matters of natural 

 history, it may at any rate be worth while to 

 give the goisamp the benefit of the doubt ! 



There seems to be an idea that male croco- 

 diles are much less numerous in the East than 

 females, but this rests on a wrong interpreta- 

 tion of the fact that, whereas the males remain 

 out in deep water, it is the females only that 

 get trapped or shot when coming ashore to 



