286 
REPTILES. 
[Chap. IX. 
leaving the crocodile to make its way to the adjoining 
lake. 
The Singhalese believe that the crocodile can only- 
move swiftly on sand or smooth clay, its feet being too 
tender to tread firmly on hard or stony ground. In 
the dry season, when the watercourses begin to fail and 
the tanks become exhausted, the marsh-crocodiles have 
occasionally been encountered in the jungle, wandering 
in search of water. During a severe drought in 1844, 
they deserted a tank near Kornegalle and traversed the 
town during the night, on their way to another reservoir 
in the suburb ; two or three fell into the wells ; others, 
in their trepidation, laid eggs in the street, and some 
were found entangled in garden- fences and killed. 
Generally, however, during the extreme drought, 
when unable to procure their ordinary food from the 
drying up of the watercourses, they bury themselves in 
the mud, and remain in a state of torpor till released by 
the recurrence of rains. 1 At Arne-tivoe, in the eastern 
province, whilst riding across the parched bed of the 
tank, I was shown the recess, still bearing the form and 
impress of a crocodile, out of which the animal had 
been seen to emerge the day before. A story was also 
related to me of an officer attached to the department 
of the Surveyor-Greneral, who, having pitched his 
tent in a similar position, was disturbed during the 
night by feeling a movement of the earth below his bed, 
from which on the following day a crocodile emerged, 
making its appearance from beneath the matting. 2 
The fresh water species that inhabits the tanks is essen- 
1 Herodotus records the obser- 2 Humboldt relates a similar 
vations of the Egyptians that the story as occurring at Calabazo, in 
crocodile of the Nile abstains from Venezuela. — Personal Narrative, c. 
food during the four winter months, xvi. 
— Euterpe, lviii. 
