Reptiles. 251 



jflourished and decayed, and still the tortoise dragged on its slow and 

 unsympathising existence." 



If we were to give full credence to the narration of Pliny, we could 

 not doubt, that tortoises in these degenerate days, have lost much of 

 their medicinal virtues, and been sadly " curtailed of their fair pro- 

 portions ; " for he expressly informs us, that " there be found tortoises 

 in the Indian sea, so great that only one shel of them is sufficient for 

 the roufe of a dwelling house " ! 



Passing by the second order, the Enaliosauria of Coneybeare, under 

 which the different genera of our gigantic fossil reptiles are arranged, 

 we come to the third order, the Loricata, which comprises the alliga- 

 tor and the crocodile. These formidable creatures are known to us 

 only by the writings of travellers in tropical countries, by small alli- 

 gators brought here occasionally as objects of curiosity, and by the 

 skins of larger individuals exhibited in public museums. Yet, with 

 the exception of some of the larger Mammalia, there are perhaps 

 none of the animals of warmer latitudes with whose appearance and 

 history we are more familiar. Hence no one doubts for a moment 

 the meaning of Mrs. Malaprop, when, with her usual felicity, she 

 speaks of " an allegory on the banks of the Nile." 



The accounts given by some ancient writers of the size of some of 

 these reptiles, are such as we might expect from people among whom 

 incorrect and exaggerated ideas were still current. We are told by 

 Pliny, that Regulus encountered in Africa a serpent a hundred and 

 twenty feet long, which he and his army could not subdue, except by 

 discharging against it all their instruments of war [halistis atque cata- 

 pultis). If such ideas of magnitude were still extant in Hamlet's time, 

 we may well imagine he proposes an impossible undertaking, when 

 he asks, in his passion with Laertes, — 



" Woul't drink up Esil ? eat a crocodile ? 

 I'll do't." 



In Antony and Cleopatra we are amused with the playful descrip- 

 tion of the creature given by Antony, in reply to the question of Le- 

 pidus — " What manner o' thing is your crocodile ? " 



" It is shaped, Sir, like itself, and it is as broad as it hath breadth," &c. (&c. 

 Concluding with the intelligence — " and the tears of it are wet." 



In the same scene we have the doctrine of equivocal generation 

 introduced. 



Lep. — " Your serpent of Egypt, is bred now of your mud by the operation of your 



sun ; so is your crocodile. 

 AnL~'' They are so." 



