Chap. XXr. CROCODILES — THEIR EGGS. 443 



large. The great white blossoms were just out, and much 

 of last year's fruit was still hanging on the branches. 



Crocodiles in the Eovuma have a sorry time of it. 

 Never before were reptiles so persecuted and snubbed. 

 They are hunted with spears, and spring traps are set for 

 them. If one of them enters an inviting pool after fish, 

 he soon finds a fence thrown round it, and a spring trap 

 set in the only path out of the enclosure. Their flesh is 

 eaten, and relished. The banks, on which the female lays 

 her eggs by night, are carefully searched by day, and all the 

 eggs dug out and devoured. The fish-hawk makes havoc 

 among the few young ones that escape their other enemies. 

 Our men were constantly on the look-out for crocodiles' 

 nests. One was found containing thirty-five newly-laid eggs, 

 and they declared that the crocodile would lay as many more 

 the second night in another place. The eggs were a foot 

 deep in the sand on the top of a bank ten feet high. 

 The animal digs a hole with its foot, covers the eggs, 

 and leaves them till the river rises over the nest in about 

 three months afterwards, when she comes back, and assists 

 the young ones out. We once saw opposite Tette young 

 crocodiles in December, swimming beside an island in com- 

 pany with an old one. The yolk of the egg is nearly as 

 white as the real white. In taste they resemble hen's eggs 

 with perhaps a smack of custard, and would be as highly 

 relished by whites as by blacks, were it not for their unsa- 

 voury origin in men-eaters. 



Hunting the Senze (Aulacodus Swindernianus), an animal 

 the size of a large cat, but in shape more like a pig, was the 

 chief business of men and boys as we passed the reedy banks 

 and low islands. They set fire to a mass of reeds, and, armed 

 with sticks, spears, bows and arrows, stand in groups guard- 

 ing the outlets through which the scared Senze may run from 



