286 INTRODUCTION TO ZOOLOGY. 



designed by nature to feed upon putrefying materials, and so 

 strong is this impulse, that when they drown a living animal, 

 it is said not to be devoured immediately, but dragged into 

 some place where it can be kept until decay has set in.* 



But though, like other gourmands, the Crocodile keeps his 

 game until it has acquired the racy flavour and tenderness of 

 muscle which comes with decay, the organ of taste, the tongue, 

 has not the usual freedom of motion; it is flat and fleshy, and 

 is attached to the mouth so much that the ancients supposed 

 it was altogether wanting. 



We can account, therefore, for their idea respecting the 

 tongue, but there were other notions current respecting these 

 reptiles which cannot be so easily explained; such as their 

 uttering piteous cries to allure travellers to the water, and 

 there destroying them, weeping while they did so. To this 

 tradition Shakspeare alludes in the passage 



' Gloster's show 



ISeguiles him, as the mournful Crocodile 

 With sorrow snares relenting passengers." 



Second Part KING HENRY VI. act iii. scene 1. 



In the " Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Maundeville, 

 Knt," between the years 1322 and 1356, we are furnished 

 with another example of the prevalence of these old errors: 



"In that contre and be all yonde, ben great plenty of 

 Crokodilles, that is a manner of a long Serpent, as I have 

 seyd before. These Serpents slew men, and thei eaten hem 

 wepynge; and whan thei eaten, thei meven the over jowe, and 

 nought the nether jowe: and thei have no tonge." 



The Crocodile sometimes attains the length of thirty feet, 

 but Mr. Swainson remarks, "that it is only dangerous when 

 in the water; upon land it is a slow-paced and even timid 

 animal, so that an active boy, armed with a small hatchet, 

 might easily despatch one/' He elsewhere adds, that on land, 

 " so far from attacking man, they fly from his presence." 



The beneficent provision by which the teeth are kept at 

 all times in full order for their appointed functions, is not less 

 complete or effectual than in the Shark (p. 242) or the 

 Serpent (p. 277): a successive series of new teeth is ever 

 growing throughout the entire period of life; each grows 

 through the central portion of its predecessor, which is partly 



* Swainson. 



