12 THE EEPTILES OF EGYPT. 
mentions that he saw a skin at the convent of Neguade (Nakadeh) 30 feet long and 4 
broad, and that lie had been informed that some individuals attained to 50 feet in 
length, a statement that has recently been made regarding examples of the species in 
the Congo K John Antes 2 states that a stuffed skin taken by him to Europe and 
placed in a Museum at Barby (sic) in Saxony measured more than 16 feet, and that it 
was the largest he had seen in any museum. Light 3 , who measured one he killed at 
Girgeh, in 1814, found that it was about 16 feet in length, but he had, he informs us, 
observed larger individuals. H. Cloquet 4 , writing in 1818, mentions that his father, 
while in Egypt with the French Expedition, had observed a crocodile at Thebes 25 
feet long ; and Cailliaud 5 , the celebrated antiquarian, saw one at Denderah of the same 
dimensions. Wilkinson 6 first held that it did not exceed 18 or 19 feet, but he after- 
wards believed that it did not attain to 22 feet in length. James Burton 7 has given 
the measurements of two crocodiles captured at Thebes, in 1830 : one 15^ and the 
other 16tyfeet in length. A specimen from the Nehr Zerka, or blue river, in Palestine, 
the crocodile river of the ancients, recorded by Mr. Schumacher, in 1877, was 3 metres 
long 8 . Mr. Boulenger 9 states that the largest crocodile in the British Museum 
measures only \\ metres. A skeleton of a male in the Royal College of Surgeons 
Museum, shot at Silsileh by the Hon. C. P. F. Berkeley (now Lord Fitzhardinge), 
is 4 m. 700 millim. in length. The late Mr. V. Stuart 10 records that he saw four 
crocodiles at Abu-Simbel, and that one of them must have been 18 feet long. 
From these facts it will be observed that there is no record of the actual measure- 
ments of any Nile crocodile over 17 feet, and that the greater size attributed to 
other specimens has all been guesswork. The limit of growth, however, is quite 
unknown. 
The Nile crocodile lays from 40 to 60 eggs, about the size of those of a goose. They 
are deposited in spring in the sand, where they are hatched by the heat of the sun in 
about a month. Geoffrey says that Herodotus was correct in stating that the mother 
exercises a kind of supervision over the eggs as they approach maturity ; but what the 
nature of this supervision is we do not know, as there is but little reliable information 
on record regarding the habits of this animal. A freshly hatched crocodile is about 
1 Werner, Biver Life on the Congo, 1889, pp. 184-185. 2 Op. cit. p. 83. 
3 Travels in Egypt (1814), 1818, p. 47. * Diet, des Sc. Nat. xii. 1818, p. 10. 
5 Voyage a, Meroe, au Eleuve Blanc, 1826, i. p. 293. 
B Genl. View of Egypt, 1835, p. 225 note. 7 Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 25,666. 
8 Boettger, Ber. Senck. Ges. 1879-80, p. 202. 
9 Cat. of Chelonians &c. 1889, p. 283. 
10 Nile Gleanings, 1879, p. 161. In museums generally, crocodiles are almost invariably mounted lying 
on their bellies, as if they were merely capable of a shambling gait, and could only drag their heavy bodies 
along the ground. Mr. Stuart, however, states that when the large individual mentioned above observed a 
gazelle approaching, it got to its legs, and, with slow and deliberate steps, walked along the bank, keeping his 
great heavy body well off the ground. 
