286 



EEPTILES. 



[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-General, 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. 



