Ckocodii.e of the Nile.- 



-REPTILES.- 



-TiiE Gavial. 



81 



as wo linve stated above, Crocodiles in some parts of 

 Egypt were held sacred and had divine honours 

 paid to them, there were other parts of that coimtry 

 where they were held in great detestation, the natives 

 pursuing them as enemies, and even eating tliem. A 

 sentiment of religion was at the bottom of this feel- 

 ing also, and it was because they believed that Typhon 

 the murderer of Osiris and the genius of evil, had 

 transformed himself into a Crocodile. In Afiica the 

 negroes eat the flesh of the Crocodile at the present 

 day, and are bold and skilful in capturing them. M. 

 Adanson, who found hundicds of those animals in 

 the Senegal during his residence there, tells us that 

 one of his negroes killed a Crocodile seven feet long. 

 " He had seen him lying asleep amongst the brush- 

 wood at the foot of a tree on the bank of a river. He 

 approached so quietly as not to disturb it, and then 

 very adroitly inflicted with his knife a blow on the 

 side of his neck, undefended by the bones of the head 

 or by scales, and drove it nearly through and through. 

 The animal mortally wounded, writhing back though 

 with difficulty, struck the negro such a violent blow on 

 his leg that he knocked him down. He rose imme- 

 diately, however, without letting go his hold, and that 

 he might not have anything to fear from the murderous 

 jaws of the Crocodile, he enveloped them in a piece of 

 cotton cloth, whilst his comrade held him by the tail. 

 In order to assist him I mounted him upon liis back ; 

 then the negro drew his knife, and cut off his head, 

 which he separated fiom the trunk." In Dongola at 

 the present day, the Crocodile is also caught by means 

 of a harpoon for the sake of its flesh. 



In the latter years of the Republic and in the early 

 part of the Empire, the llomans were made well 

 acquainted with the Crocodile of the Nile. About fiftj'- 

 eight years before the Christian era, the edilo Scaurus 

 exhibited at Rome five Crocodiles from that river. 

 Strabo mentions, on another occasion, that the inhabi- 

 tants of Denderah brought many to the great capital. 

 But the most astonishing spectacle of this sort ever 

 witnessed, was when the Emperor Augustus caused the 

 Elaviniau Circus to be filled with water, and tliere 

 disfilayed thirty-six Crocodiles, which were encountered 

 by an equal number of gladiators, for the amusement 

 of the Roman populace. 



M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire describes several species of 

 Crocodile as inhabiting the Nile, and particularly points 

 out two, which, however, are now considered as mere 

 varieties. The first of these is a small species which 

 he calls Crocodihis suchtis, from tlie Greek word soul.is 

 (ao-j'/.ii), by which name Strabo informs us it was 

 known, and which he says is the true Sacred Crocodile 

 of the ancient Egyptians, worshipped at Arsinoe. The 

 second is much larger and fiercer, C. vulgaris, and is 

 the species which was detested, hunted, and eaten by 

 the natives. The smaller or sacred species, he says, 

 followed the inundations of the Nile and the smaller 

 tributaries of that river, and was often found therefore 

 at a distance from the banks of the Nile. It was 

 inoffensive; and its appearance being connected with 

 the annual overflow of the river, upon which their crops 

 and subsistence depended, it was looked upon with a 

 feeling of reverence, and became in time to be wor- 



VOL.. II. 



shipped as a deity. The extremity of the muzzle of 

 the Crocodile, according to this same author, is very 

 sensitive, and he tliinks that the secret of the priests 

 succeeding in rendering their sacred individuals so 

 tame as they were described to be, consisted in their 

 touching this sensitive muzzle, by doing which, he adds, 

 the Crocodile will naturally open its mouth, so that it 

 may be fed. A third species was described from a 

 mummied specimen taken from the Crocodile rnummy 

 caves at Thebes. These caves he visited himself, and 

 found many Crocodiles embalmed and in perfect pre- 

 servation. " From the hand of the person who had 

 deposited there the sacred relics," he says, " they 

 passed into mine. The two acts succeeded each other 

 without any further interruption than a night of thirly 

 ages having rolled between them." We will finish this 

 account of the Crocodile, by stating that this is not the 

 Egyptian name for the animal. The name of Crocodile 

 {x^oM&iiXo;) was first applied to it by the lonians, from 

 the resemblance it bore to that of the lizards which 

 they were in the habit of seeing on their walls, and 

 which they called by that name. Herodotus tells us 

 that the ancient Egyptian name for it was Champsa. 

 The Coptic name at the present day is Temsah, which 

 is no doubt a corruption of the old word Champsa. 



Two or three species of Crocodiles are natives of 

 India and America, but wo must pass on to the next 

 genus, G(n-ia!is :^ 



THE GAVIAL (GaviaUs Ga7>//eliais)—V\ale 7, fig. 1; 

 and Plate 8, figs. 14, Ha (upper jaw and teeth)— differs 

 from the crocodiles in having the jaws very long and 

 very narrow ; so much so, that they form a kind of sub- 

 cylindrical beak that offers a strong contrast to the size 

 of the head. At the end of the beak, where the nostrils 

 are f laced, we see in the male a large swelling of an oval 

 form and cartilaginous structure, forming a kind of sac 

 or nasal pouch, which is divided into two internally by 

 a partition. The teeth are not so unequal in size aiid 

 length as in the crocodiles, but are much more numer- 

 ous. In general, they are from one hundred anil 

 eighteen to one hundred and twenty in number, and are 

 all pretty equal, with the exception of the five or six 

 first pairs in both jaws. The canines are small, quite 

 anterior, and those of the lower jaw fit into a notch 

 in the edge of the upper. The Gavial is a native of 

 India, more particularly of the Ganges, and is one of 

 the largest species of the order of reptiles to which it 

 belongs. It is about seventeen feet long ; though 

 Lacepede mentions the fact of there being the jaw of au 

 individual in the collection in Paris which, when alive, 

 must have measured upwards of thirty feet. It was 

 first described by our countryman Edw-ards in 1750 ; 

 and theTiame of Gavial was first ajiplied to it by Lace- 

 pede, from its Indian appellation. The Gavial feeds 

 on fish chiefly, and, notwithstanding ils large size, docp 

 not appear to be dangerous to men. It seems to have 

 been known to the ancients, as /Elian speaks of a 

 species of crocodile being found on the banks of the 

 Ganges, which had a kind of horn on the snout. Tavcr- 

 nier, a traveller in the East about the years 1C48-50, 

 Bcems to have encountered this species on the Ganges, 

 below Tontii'our. He saw a number of them lying on 

 the sand on the banks of the river, and, firing at one of 



