HABITS. 249 



renders the same service to the crocodiles of that 

 place as the plover to the common crocodile. 



Notwithstanding their voracity, crocodiles can re- 

 main for several months without food. Brown, in his 

 "Natural History of Jamaica, " reports that he had 

 satisfied himself on this point by tying up the 

 muzzles of several of them with wire. 



Some species pass a part of the year in a lethargic 

 sleep. The pike-muzzled cayman, which inhabits 

 South America, and ascends the Mississippi and its 

 affluents as far as the 32nd degree, buries itself in the 

 mud as soon as cold weather comes, and passes the 

 whole winter season in a state of torpor. The rising of 

 the temperature in South America produces the same 

 effect as its falling in North America. At Cayenne 

 and Bahia, in the half-dry marshes, troops of caymans 

 buried in the slime, their backs only visible, await 

 in a lethargic state the return of the rains. Travellers 

 say that some caymans dig holes on the margins of 

 the marshes, into which they retire to sleep the long 

 sleep. Pliny writes, that crocodiles pass the four 

 months of winter in caverns. This was perhaps true 

 of the crocodiles inhabiting the Delta ; now-a-days the 

 Nile crocodiles do not become torpid. 



All crocodiles are oviparous. The female deposits 

 her eggs, covered with an elastic calcareous shell, in 

 holes, which it digs on the banks of rivers. Living- 



