462 CROCODILIA 



CHAP. 



monster ; the dragging out of a hooked, full-grown specimen 

 requires many men and is a formidable task. Of course fire- 

 arms have changed all this, and its invulnerability to bullets is 

 nonsense. It is true that a bullet sent into the head is generally 

 ineffective, since it is a hundred to one that the bullet does not 

 hit the small brain, and even if it does, the creature sinks to the 

 bottom and is lost to view until decomposition sets in and the 

 gases developing in the body cause it to float. 



Herodotus has quaint stories about these crocodiles and their 

 worship. Amongst other stories he mentions that the bird 

 Trochilus, supposed to be the Pluvianus aegyptius, a kind of 

 Plover, slips into the gaping mouth to pick off the leeches 

 which infest the reptile's gums. " In Egypt it is called 

 Champsa, but the lonians call them Ko/coSpi\oi on account of the 

 resemblance to the lizards which live on their garden walls." 

 This is in fact the origin of the name crocodile, /eopSuXo? being 

 the ancient Greek for lizard and newt. With reduplication 

 Koptc6pSv\os and by metathesis ultimately KpoicoBeiXos. The 

 Arabic name is ledschun. 



The story about the Plover seems to be true. These birds 

 are sometimes seen sitting upon basking crocodiles, and since the 

 latter are in the habit of resting, perhaps half asleep, with the 

 mouth wide open, it is possible that these agile birds do pick 

 their teeth, and that they, being also very watchful, by their 

 own cry of warning and by fluttering off on the approach of 

 danger, give the alarm to the crocodiles and thus benefit them 

 in more than one way. 



But the equally old story about the Ichneumon or Mongoose 

 is an idle invention. Mongooses are partial to eggs, but they 

 certainly prefer those of hens and other birds to those of the 

 crocodile, which are far too hard and strong to be broken by 

 such a little animal. Moreover, as we shall see presently, the 

 eggs are far too well concealed. 



The best account of the habits of these crocodiles is the one 

 given recently by Voeltzkow, 1 who has spent a long time in 

 Madagascar to collect material for the study of their develop- 

 ment. 



He says that C. niloticus is not only the most common 

 reptile, but perhaps the most common vertebrate in Madagascar. 

 1 Sitzber. Ak. Berlin. 1891, p. 115 ; 1893, p. 347. 



