156 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XL 



With reference to the crocodile bird which Herodotus described as picking 

 the teeth of the animal, a man on whose word I could depend told me that 

 he had seen a bird do so on tbe Beypore river. Not being a naturalist, he 

 did not know what the bird was, but called it a " sandpiper." In the Field 

 about January or February, 1886, in an article entitled " Down the backwater 

 at Cannanore," a correspondent described how a small bird hopped in and out 

 of the crocodile's mouth as if it were the most natural thing in the world. 

 Sir Samuel Baker told me that, although he had never seen a bird actually 

 in the crocodile's mouth, he had no doubt that the tale was true. 



Mr. H. H. Johnston, in his "Biver Congo," identifies the crocodile bird as 

 Lobivanellus albiceps, which is clearly a mistake, while the species which he 

 figures in a vignette on his title-page is Pluvianus egyptius, the Nile plover, 

 one of the two species known to befriend the crocodile, the other being Hop- 

 lopterus spinosus, the spur-winged plover of North Africa. The last-named 

 bird is not found in India, but a closely allied species (H. ventralis) is recog- 

 nised. It, however, has not been recorded south of the Godavery river, and 

 is not likely to be the bird seen by my informant nor by the author of " Down 

 the Backwater at Cannanore." " Old Log," in his admirable articles pre- 

 viously referred to, mentions the spur-winged plover as being in attendance 

 on the crocodile, but this would appear to have been in Burma, where Hop* 

 lopterus ventralis is known to occur. 



It is quite evident, from what I have stated as to the habitat of the Indian 

 spur-winged plover, that this could not be the bird that picks the crocodile's 

 teeth on the western coast of India, and it is therefore probable that there 

 are other birds besides the spur-winged plover which do this friendly office 

 for the crocodile. 



Mr. John M. Cook, in the Ibis for April, 1893, describes how he saw a bird 

 enter the mouth of the crocodile, which was closed on it for a minute or two, 

 and how he subsequently shot the bird, which was identified as the spur- 

 winged plover of Egypt {Horopterus spinosus). ' This proves conclusively 

 that more than one species of bird picks the crocodile's teeth. 



The crocodile of the Nile (now known as C. niloHcus) is identical with C. 

 palustris in every way, including the nuchal and cervical plates, and differs 

 only by the snout being slightly longer. C. palustris grows to a length of 

 29ft. 6in., that being the record of one killed by Mr. Brunton at Cochin 

 on the western coast. The length of the head of this monster (which is 

 preserved at Cochin) was no less than 2ft. 8|in. In an ordinary way a 12ft. 

 specimen is large and a 15ft. specimen looks enormous, so that Mr. Brunton's 

 specimen is abnormally long for this species. 



With regard to C. porosus, it seems a species which has been much neglect- 

 ed, and to the present day its distribution is unknown. Unfortunately, Dr. 

 Gimther did not figure it in his "Beptiles of British India," but substituted 

 C. pondicherianus (which really came from Akyab) for it. Its synonyms are 



