22 THE EEPTILES OF EGTPT. 
Geoffroy, believing that he had before him the true trochilus of Herodotus, and 
being aware that the Jesuit Sicard had stated that the sag-sag of the Arabs was 
the trochilus, applied this term to his bird (jEgialites curonica), which he had 
erroneously identified with Pluvianus cegyptius. Other authors, in accepting his 
identification, have thus used the term zig-zag for the wrong bud {Pluvianus cegyptius), 
but Gurney 1 has correctly applied it to the plover {Hoplopterus spinosus). It is thus 
evident that the bird which Geoffroy saw entering the crocodile's mouth was not 
P. cegyptius. It is noteworthy, moreover, that Brehm 2 , who is the only other 
observer, until recent years, who has stated that he had seen P. cegyptius enter the 
crocodile's mouth, calls it the zig-zag, whereas Heuglin 3 says that it is known to 
the Arabs as the Ter el Temsach, i. e. Tayir el Timsah, in Arabic J^ L^= 
crocodile-bird. 
Dr. A. Leith Adams 4 , however, has pointed out that the Arab story, which was told 
to him in much the same words, apparently, as it was recounted to Marmol 5 , more than 
three and a half centuries ago, is always related of the zig-zag. Geoffroy ridiculed 
Blanchard's 6 remark about the bird having a spine either on its back or at the end of 
its wings ; and so little did he think of Hoplopterus spinosus as possibly being the bird, 
that he threw out the supposition that Blanchard had been influenced by some remarks 
on the crocodile-bird made by Scaliger 7 , and had mixed up with them a passage in 
which Strabo 8 speaks of the fish porcus having spines on its pectoral fins, and adds 
that Marmol, who ought to have been better informed, as he had visited Egypt, had 
repeated what Scaliger had said about the bird. But Strabo merely says the crocodiles 
never touch the porcus, a round fish, as it has the head provided with spines dangerous 
to the crocodile. In Marmol's description of the bird, as has already been seen, 
there is no mention of spines on the wings ; but Blanchard states : " la nature a donne 
aus plumes du petit oiseau, soit sur le dos, soit au boiit des ailes, une roideur qui 
picoteroit durement les parties charnues de la gueule du crocodile, s'il vouloit la 
fermer," thus supplementing Marmol's indication, and, in so doing, suggesting 
Hoplopterus spinosus to future observers. 
Mr. J. M. Cook 9 has recorded that he has seen the true zig-zag {Hoplopterus spinosus) 
go deliberately up to a crocodile apparently asleep, the latter open its jaws, the bird 
hop into the mouth, and the jaws close upon it. In little more than a minute or two 
the crocodile opened its mouth, the bird came out and ran down to the water ; and this 
he saw repeated three times, but witnessed it through field-glasses at the distance of 
1 Bambles of a Naturalist in Egypt, 1876, p. 198. - Thierleben, Vogel, 2nd ed. vol. iii. p. 266. 
3 Ormth. Nordost-Afr. 1873, ii. p. 97S. 
4 Ibis, 1864, p. 29. s Op. cit. cap. 22. 
c Mem. de l'Aead. des Inscrip. is. 1736, 2 sect. p. 25. 
7 Op. cit. Exerc. 196, sect. 5. " Op. cit. lib. xvii. 1819, p. 446. 
Ibis, 1893, p. 276. 
