72 ANIMAL LIFE IN AFRICA 



probably fired by myself about five months before. 

 This had entered near the root of the tail of course, 

 missing the backbone and had more or less raked 

 the animal, without, seemingly, causing him much 

 inconvenience. 



In 1902, a native brought in some half-dozen newly 

 hatched crocodiles. They were only a few inches long, 

 and I kept them for some time in a bucketful of water, 

 feeding them on various insects. Their habits were 

 precisely those of their elders. As they lay floating on 

 the top of the water, a blue-bottle fly would be dropped 

 within an inch of the nose of one of them. For the space 

 of perhaps half an hour the little reptile would lie like 

 a log, apparently quite unconscious of anything at all. 

 Then, without warning, he would make a lightning dart, 

 and the fly would disappear. A little later, I sent them 

 to the Zoo at Pretoria, where they were all reported to 

 have died within a few weeks of arrival, and to have been 

 thrown away on to a rubbish heap. Time passed and the 

 incident was forgotten ; but a few years later it was 

 noticed that young waterfowl in one of the large ponds 

 in the gardens occasionally disappeared in a mysterious 

 manner. One morning, when this sort of thing had been 

 going on for a considerable time, a native attendant 

 came rushing up from the place, exclaiming excitedly 

 that " there was a schelm in the water." Investigation 

 subsequently disclosed the presence of a crocodile 

 nearly four feet long, which, without doubt, was one 

 of the youngsters thrown away for dead three years 

 previously. 



It is very difficult to catch a crocodile in even the 

 largest gin-trap. I have often set these things over baits 

 close to the water's edge ; but the reptile almost always 

 springs the trap without injury to himself, and after- 



