REPTILES IN CAPTIVITY 201 
carried away the lot. The dealer was so much pleased with 
this transaction that he made me a present of a young alligator 
three and a half feet long. It is true that it turned out to be 
blind in one eye, but it does not do to look a gift horse in the 
mouth, nor a gift alligator in the eye! 
At this time alligators were very rare in Europe, and we 
made a very good business out of them. Even I, who was 
then only twelve years old, succeeded in selling my one-eyed 
alligator for eighteen shillings, which was to me a large for- 
tune. 
As compared with the great Indian crocodiles (or gavials) 
of the Ganges and the Brahmapootra, the American alligators 
are mere dwarfs. About fifteen years ago two skins of these 
crocodiles came into my possession, one fourteen and the other 
sixteen feet long. These J exhibited at Vienna, and they 
may still be seen in the Imperial Museum at that city. That 
they are not unusually large specimens, I have the evidence 
of my traveller Johansen, who states that three years ago, 
when navigating the Brahmapootra, he shot two gavials 
measuring fully twenty-five feet. He was, however, unable 
to secure their carcases, for the stream ran so strongly that it 
was impossible to stop the vessel. He says, moreover, that 
he has seen specimens of these animals quite thirty feet long ; 
and now that he is again making a journey to India I have 
given him orders to bring home, if not the animal itself, at 
least some skins of it. I have several times tried to import 
the young of this species, but without success; they all died 
on the journey. I believe that these Ganges gavials are the 
largest crocodiles in existence, though my travellers have told 
me that those inhabiting the White Nile and the great African 
lakes reach enormous dimensions. Will it ever be possible 
to exhibit one of these gigantic creatures in captivity? 
