ALLIGATORS. 1 35 



to it : — " When the crocodile takes his food in the Nile, the 

 interior of its mouth is always covered with bdella (flies). All birds, 

 with one single exception, flee from the crocodile ; but this one, the 

 Nile Bird, far from avoiding it, flies towards the reptile with the 

 greatest eagerness, and renders it a very essential service. Every 

 time the crocodile goes on shore to sleep, and at the moment when 

 it lies extended with open jaws, the Nile Bird enters the mouth of 

 the terrible animal and delivers it from the bdella which it finds 

 there ; the crocodile shows its recognition of the service, by never 

 harming the bird." 



This fact, reported by Herodotus, was long considered to be a 

 fable, but the naturalist, Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, who- formed 

 part of the commission that General Bonaparte took with him in 

 his expedition into Egypt, had on several occasions opportunities 

 of proving the truth of the historian's narrative. 



In a memoir read to the Academy of Sciences on the 28th of 

 January, 1828, he says : " It is perfectly true that there exists a little 

 bird which flies about, perpetually seeking, even in the mouth of 

 the crocodile, the insects which form the principal part of its 

 nourishment." This bird, which Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire recognised 

 as the Charadrius agyptius of ornithologists, is like a Plover. The 

 fly, which thus torments the Crocodiles, and even excites them to 

 madness, is no other than our European gnat. Myriads of these 

 insects haunt the banks' of the Nile, and when these giants of its 

 waters repose on its margin to warm themselves in the sun, they 

 become the prey of these insignificant pigmies. It is like the 

 war between the lion and the mouse, described by La Fontaine. 

 Crocodiles are more voracious than Alligators. Hasselquist asserts 

 that in Upper Egypt they often devour women who come to draw 

 water, or children playing upon the banks of the Nile. Geoffroy 

 Saint-Hilaire says, that in the Thebaid they often met with Arabs 

 mutilated by the crocodiles. Sir Samuel Baker also mentions, in 

 his late work on " The Nile and its Tributaries," the craving of these 

 Amphibia for human flesh, and the dread they are held in by the 

 natives. Livingstone gives the following account of these ferocious 

 animals : — 



" The crocodile," says the celebrated traveller, " makes many 

 victims every year among the children who are so imprudent as to 

 play on the banks of the Liambia when their mothers go to fetch 

 water. The crocodile stupefies its victim with a blow from its tail, 

 then drags it into the river, where it is soon drowned. In general, 

 when the crocodile perceives a man it dives, and furtively glides 



