MULLAITIVU. 265 



the time to gather them. It was my habit to start for the pool 

 at three o'clock, when the sun was blazing hot, taking with me 

 my poor little deaf coolie, Canis familiaris, and also Henrique, if 

 his work allowed, to assist in cai-rying home the bag. Canis al- 

 ways carried a couple of half-ripe cocoanuts, with which to slake 

 our thii'st at the pool, for there it was 



"Water, water everywhere, 

 Nor any drop to drink." 



Some days, when the sun was excessively hot and I shot poorly, 

 we got nothing, but on others, when everything went well, we 

 killed and secured all we could care for. Our best day's work was 

 when we shot and got three good specimens, the largest of which 

 was nine feet in length. Altogether I took an even dozen Croco- 

 dilus palustris — varying in length from five to nine feet — out of 

 that little pool. 



I made the discoveiy that this species is cannibalistic. On 

 more than one occasion I found their stomachs well filled with 

 flesh which I had cut from the bones of their mates in skeletoniz- 

 ing, and left near the water. 



Not only did the loose chunks of meat disappear promptly dur- 

 ing the fii'st night of their exposure, but the whole carcasses of the 

 crocodiles I skinned were likewise disposed of. Every morning I 

 would find the ground picked clean, not a vestige either of body, 

 bones, or entrails remaining in sight over night. The flesh (and in 

 some cases the bones also) of twelve crocodiles was thus eaten by 

 the friends and relatives of the deceased. 



Two of the crocodiles I shot, specimens seven feet long, were 

 grievously afflicted with a cutaneous disease hke leprosy. In one, 

 the whole left side of the head, the neck, and throat were the parts 

 affected, and in the other it was the entire tail. On these parts the 

 epidermis had peeled off entirely, and the skin was covered with 

 huge, scale-like scabs, which, when peeled off, left the diseased skin 

 of an unwholesome bluish color. Both specimens had running 

 sores at the points where the sternum and peWs touched the 

 ground, and both were so emaciated as to be little more than skin 

 and bone. In the stomach of one I found a handful of swamp 

 grass and a lot of small pebbles. Thus were the weak and sickly 

 indi^iduals crowded to the wall in the struggle for existence which 

 was going on in that over-crowded pool. 



