BOTANIC GARDENS MENAGERIE, 185 



Crocodilus porosus. 



The common crocodile, is easily procured and easily kept. 

 One brought to the gardens and left tied up for a short time 

 managed to escape into the lake where it grew to a length of 6 

 or 7 feet, and became troublesome, destroying the waterfowl 

 and eventually commenced trying to seize the coolies drawing 

 water. All kinds of methods were resorted to destroy it. It 

 was twice wounded with shot, and both arsenic and strychnine 

 were administered to it in chickens. Attempts were made to 

 net it, and to catch it with hooks and bamboo spikes fastened 

 to chickens and also to destroy it with dynamite. All proved 

 unsuccessful, and finally the lake was drained nearly dry and 

 attempts made to find and shoot or spear it, but it concealed 

 itself in the mud, and during the night escaped from the lake 

 and was never seen or heard of again. Another was kept in a 

 tank for a considerable time, and became tame enough to come 

 to the side whenever it was called, but w T as always vicious when 

 the keeper entered the enclosure. On one occasion a visitor 

 thrust a stick into its mouth which broke and a portion lodged 

 transversely across its throat. This was with some difficulty 

 extracted, but caused an abscess behind the base of the ramus 

 of the jaw which penetrated through causing a large hole from 

 the outside into its throat. The animal refused food for a few 

 days, and the wound commenced to heal and in a surprisingly 

 short time the damage was quite repaired. The crocodile lived 

 . till it was sold in 1904. 



Hijdrosaurus salvator. 



The Biawak or Monitor has often been kept. It is com- 

 mon in Singapore, and one was actually caught in a godown in 

 the town, having apparently come up a drain from the river. 

 It was in a very poor starved condition. This lizard attains a 

 very large size and is destructive to poultry. A large one living 

 near the lake killed some Siamese teal and a black swan in 1888 

 before it was destroyed. One of no great size which had 

 escaped from a cage nearly caused the death of the cooly who 

 recaptured it. It had climbed up a tree, and he ascended the 

 tree and noosed it with a string noose on a stick, but when he 



R, A. Soc, No. 46, 1906, 



