CROCODILIDAE 



461 



The Nile Crocodile is essentially African, ranging from the 

 Senegal to the Cape and to Egypt. It is also very common in 

 Madagascar. Nothing is known about its occurrence in Arabia, 

 but a few specimens of 

 rather small size seem 

 still to exist in Syria, 

 in the Wadi Zerka, an 

 eastern tributary of 

 the Jordan. 



Even in historical 

 times the Crocodile 

 must have been very 

 common in lower Egypt, 

 to judge from the 

 number of mummies 

 preserved by the old 

 Egyptians. Now it is 

 practically extermi- 

 nated, and there are 

 scarcely any left below 

 Wadi Haifa. 



Such a conspicuous 

 and dangerous creature 

 has naturally always 

 enjoyed notoriety. It 

 is well described in one 

 of the oldest writings 

 of the world, the Book 

 of Job. " Canst thou 

 draw out leviathan 



with an hook? Or his FIG. 110. Ventral view of a young Crocodilus niloticus, 



showing the arrangement of the bony scutes and 

 the two openings of the musk-glands on the lower 

 jaw. The upper right-hand figure shows on a larger 

 scale the disposition of the nuchal scutes and the 

 first row of dorsal scutes. 



tongue with a cord 



which thou lettest 



down ? . . . His scales 



are his pride, shut up 



together as with a close seal. One is so near to another, that 



no air can come between them. They are joined one to another, 



they stick together, that they cannot be sundered. . . . Lay 



thine hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more." Bows 



and arrows, spears and clubs, are of little avail against such a 



