152 Reptiles, 



codile. Their shedding tears, and their devouring the young ones as 

 soon as hatched, are inventions only for the nursery fire-side. 



Master Swainson's assertion that the crocodile " conveys its food to 

 some hole at the edge of the water, where it is suffered to putrify be- 

 fore it is devoured," may suit an infant school, but it will be rejected 

 with a smile of contempt by any one who has paid the least attention 

 to the anatomy of the crocodile's head. The dissector would see that 

 the mouth of this reptile is completely formed for snatch and swallow. 

 Now any common observer of the habits of animals with a mouth so 

 formed, must know at first sight, that these animals never eject food 

 which has once entered the mouth. Down the throat it goes imme- 

 diately, imless there be some impediment, as in the case of a stag's 

 horns. Supposing for an instant (but no one except a second Mas- 

 ter Swainson could suppose such a manifest absurdity) that the cro- 

 codile does really place its food in a hole until putridity commences ; 

 pray how is the animal to secure it from his ravenous fellow-croco- 

 diles ? — or by what process is he to curb his own hunger until the 

 lardered morsel be ready for deglutition ? 



The old and hackneyed account of crocodiles devouring their o\^ti 

 young when newly hatched, is really unworthy of refutation. Depend 

 upon it, no such unnatural banquet takes place ; for the crocodiles 

 are never reduced to so abhorrent a necessity. The rivers which they 

 inhabit abound with fish, both large and small ; and on these the cro- 

 codiles feed, as well as on fresh-water turtle. 



And as to the vultures watching individuals of the family of croco- 

 dile until they have laid'their eggs, and then devouring them, it is an 

 ancient fable, which, like Don Quixote's library of romances, ought to 

 be thrown to the fire in the court-yard, and there burnt with the rest 

 of the trash. 



I can positively affirm that neither in the Esseqnibo nor in the Oro- 

 noque did I see one single solitary attempt of a vulture to invade the 

 spot where a cayman had deposited her eggs. The cayman, in fact, 

 may perform her task with impunity, whilst hundreds of vultures are 

 standing motionless on the branches of a tree hard by, where they 

 remain till hunger bids them be stirring, and then they all take wing 

 and fly away in quest of carrion. 



Had they been watching the cayman's treasures, they would have 

 descended from the tree, and not have ascended in aerial flight. 



The cayman not unfrequently lays its eggs in a heap of dry leaves. 

 The eggs afford good nourishment to man. They are about the size 

 ol tliose of a turlicy, perhaps somewhat lai'ger. The outside of the 



