THE CROCODILE FAMILY 



319 



Florida crocodile, the mugger of India, followed 

 by the broad-headed West African crocodile, 

 and ending with the alligator, widest of all. 



THE CROCODILE FAMILY. 



Crocodilidae. 



Erroneous Impressions Corrected. — Re- 

 garding these reptiles, a number of the erroneous 

 impressions which are now prevailing should be 

 corrected. Some of them are as follows: 



The true crocodiles are not confined to the Old 

 World, four species being found in America. 



Alligators are not wholly confined to America ; 

 for a small species exists in China. 



The "movement " of a crocodile's jaws differs 

 in no manner whatever from that of an alligator. 



Only a very few species of crocodilians are 

 dangerous to man. 



So far as the author is aware, there is no au- 

 thentic record of the loss of a human life by our 

 common alligator. 



All crocodilians swim with their tails, not their 

 feet. 



The skin of a large crocodilian is by no means 

 impervious to rifle bullets. A bullet sometimes 

 strikes a bony plate and glances off ; but a 

 proper bullet, properly placed, will penetrate 

 the skin or armor of the largest alligator or croco- 

 dile, at any point. 



The author believes that no crocodile or alli- 

 gator of to-day exceeds 20 feet in length, by actual 

 measurement; and one of that length is one out 

 of ten thousand. 



Food. — Crocodilians are not epicures, and 

 some species devour all kinds of vertebrate ani- 

 mals that they can capture, from man to mud- 

 hens. But the supply of obtainable mammals 

 and birds is very limited, and fish constitutes 

 by far the greater portion of their daily food. 

 If all the scaly monsters of this Order were 

 limited in food to the mammals and aquatic 

 birds which can be seized when drinking at the 

 water's edge, or swimming in mid-stream, they 

 would indeed go hungry. 



It is a comparatively easy matter for a large 

 crocodilian to seize a quadruped of medium size, 

 draw it into deep water while struggling, and 

 drown it. 



In the Reptile House of the Zoological Park, 

 during a fight between two large alligators in the 



pool, it was discovered how an alligator dis- 

 members a bulky victim in order to devour it. 

 An alligator seized a fighting enemy by one leg, 

 and using his tail as a propeller, whirled him- 

 self round and round like a revolving shaft, until 

 in about five seconds the leg was twisted off, 

 close up to the body ! That deadly rotary move- 

 ment would have torn a leg from a small ele- 

 phant. 



On another occasion, a twelve-foot alligator 

 named "Moses" became angry at an eight-foot 

 companion, seized it by the body, lifted it clear 

 of the water, and shook it until the tough skin of 

 the back was torn in two at the joint immediately 

 in front of the hind legs. 



In the course of work among the crocodiles of 

 Ceylon, I found that some crocodiles will eat the 

 flesh of their own kind, and do so with genuine 

 relish. Crocodiles which I skinned and left be- 

 side a pool were promptly eaten by their relatives, 

 who in their turn were also killed, dissected and 

 eaten. 



Man-Eating Crocodiles. — Out of the nine- 

 teen species of crocodiles and alligators (eight of 

 which I have observed in their haunts), so far as 

 I can learn only three are dangerous to man. 

 The most dangerous man-eater is the salt-water 

 crocodile of the Malay Peninsula, Borneo and 

 surrounding regions. This reptile attains a size 

 of sixteen feet, and in the Territory of Sarawak, 

 Borneo, it devours so many people the govern- 

 ment has for years paid a cash reward for its de- 

 struction. Its method is to take advantage of 

 the murky waters of the rivers, swim up to a 

 village bathing-place, seize any man or woman 

 found bathing in the shallow w r ater, or filling a 

 water-jar, and back off into deep water. 



The West African crocodiles, 1 of Angola and 

 other portions of West Africa, are the boldest of 

 all crocodilians, sometimes attacking people who 

 are in canoes, and dragging a victim from a boat. 

 (William Harvey Brown.) 



The gavial and mugger of India are harmless 

 to man, and so are the American crocodiles, and 

 the alligator. I have gone swimming in the 

 home waters of both the gavial and alligator, — 

 the two extremes in jaw development, — and 

 therefore feel sure that both are harmless. 

 Nesting-Habits.— All the crocodilians repro- 



1 This is the Nile crocodile, which is widely dis- 

 tributed throughout Africa. 



