Ill THE SERVICE OF TAILS 83 



Later on, I found that the natives of other Pokomo 

 villages attribute the same power to the crocodile, 

 and the German missionaries at Ngao knew of 

 cases where people had been thus swept into the 

 river and killed. The natives on the Nile told 

 Sir Samuel Baker the same story, and it is hardly- 

 likely that it would have been independently in- 

 vented in two such distant localities, and by such 

 different tribes, if it had no basis in fact." 



Of course if a man, then an antelope, or fish- 

 seeking cat, or any other animal of similar size, 

 could be knocked into the stream and preyed 

 upon; and that this must often happen is mani- 

 fest from the great numbers of these reptiles which 

 inhabit streams too small to furnish sufficient food 

 in the way of fishes alone. 



The same habit belongs to the lesser land-lizards, 

 all of which whip severely with their tails when 

 fighting, large ones, like the South American 

 teguexin, being able to keep dogs at a dis- 

 tance by their fear of these blows; and it is 

 said that in their quarrels most lizards seek first 

 of all to disable the opponent's tail, success in 

 which manoeuvre wins the battle. This seems to 

 be a trifling casualty in the case of many species, 

 such as the geckos, and some American lizards, 

 whose tails break off on the slightest provocation, 

 sometimes, apparently, as a wilful stratagem on 

 the creature's part, of which a good example 

 is found in the behavior of the very common 



