288 REPTILES. [Cuar. IX. 
residence, a hook having been laid the night before, 
baited with the entrails of a goat; and made fast, in the 
native fashion, by a bunch of fine cords, which the 
creature cannot gnaw asunder as it would a solid rope, 
since they sink into the spaces between its teeth. The 
one taken was small, being only about ten or eleven 
feet in length, whereas they are frequently killed from 
fifteen to nineteen feet long. As long as it was in the 
water, it made strong resistance to being hauled on 
shore, carrying the canoe out into the deep channel, 
and occasionally raising its head above the surface, and 
clashing its jaws together menacingly. This action has 
a horrid sound, as the crocodile has no fleshy lips, and 
it brings its teeth and the bones of the mouth together 
with a loud crash, like the clank of two pieces of hard 
wood. After playing it a little, the boatmen drew it to 
land, and when once fairly on the shore all courage and 
energy seemed utterly to desert it. It tried once or 
twice to regain the water, but at last lay motionless and 
perfectly helpless on the sand. It was no easy matter 
to kill it; a rifle ball sent diagonally through its breast 
had little or no effect, and even when the shot had heen 
repeated more than once, it was as full of life as ever.' It 
1 A remarkable instance of the 
vitality of the common crocodile, 
C. biporcatus, was related to me 
by a gentleman at Galle: he had 
caught on a baited hook an un- 
usually large one, which his coolies 
disembowelled, the aperture in the 
stomach being left expanded by a 
stick placed across it. On return- 
ing in the afternoon with a view to 
secure the head, they found that 
the creature had crawled for some 
distance, and made its escape into 
the water. 
“A curious incident occurred 
some years ago on the Maguru- 
ganga, astream which flows through 
the Pasdun Corle, to join the Ben- 
tolle river. A man was fishing 
seated on the branch of a tree that 
overhung the water; and to shelter 
himself from the drizzling rain, he 
covered his head and shoulders 
with a bag folded into a shape 
common with the natives. While 
in this attitude, a leopard sprung 
upon him from the jungle, but, 
missing its aim, seized the bag and 
not the man, and fell with it into 
the river. Here a crocodile, which 
had been eyeing the angler in 
despair, seized the leopard as it 
