58 



THE CAYMAN. 



ferocity throw utter discredit upon what has 

 been supplied to Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia, 

 on Fishes, vol. ii. p. 111., by Swainson! Had 

 he ever seen anything of the habits of the 

 cayman, surely he would have paused before 

 he informed his readers in Lardner, " We often 

 met with them [caymans] in the same country 

 as Mr. Waterton, [How comes this ? Swainson 

 was never either in Spanish or in Dutch 

 Guiana, in which territories only I fell in with 

 the cayman.] but they were so timid that had 

 we been disposed to perform such ridiculous 

 feats as that traveller narrates, our compassion 

 for the poor animals would have prevented us." 



I have now given, as far as I am able, a true 

 history of the cayman, without any exaggera- 

 tion, quite free from Swainson's base accusation 

 of my " constant propensity to dress truth in 

 the garb of fiction ; " and I stake what little 

 honour and credit I have hitherto gained with 

 the public on the correctness of it. 



Should the reader believe me on my word, 

 and then compare my account of the cayman 

 with that which Swainson wrote for Lardner, 

 he must evidently come to the following con- 

 clusion, viz.- — that Swainson, when he wrote 



