Chap. 37.] 
THE CEOCODILE. 
287 
CHAP. 36. THE ICHNErMOI?'. 
This hostility is the especial glory of this animal, which is 
also produced in Egypt. It plunges itself repeatedly into the 
mud, and then dries itself in the sun : as soon as, by these 
means, it has armed itself with a sufficient number of coatings, 
it proceeds to the combat. Eaising its tail, and turning its 
back to the serpent, it receives its stings, which are inflicted to 
no purpose, until at last, turning its head sideways, and view- 
ing its enemy, it seizes it by the throat. Not content, how- 
ever, with this victory, it conquers another creature also, which 
is no less dangerous. 
CHAP. 37. (25.) THE CEOCODILE. 
The Nile produces the crocodile also,^"^ a destructive quad- 
ruped, and equally dangerous on land and in the water. This 
is the only land animal that does not enjoy the use of its 
tongue, and the only one that has the upper jaw moveable, 
and is capable of biting with it ; and terrible is its bite, for the 
rows of its teeth fit into each other, like those of a comb.^^ Its 
length mostly exceeds eighteen cubits. It produces eggs about 
the size of those of the goose, and, by a kind of instinctive 
foresight, always deposits them beyond the limit to which 
the river Nile rises, when at its greatest height.^^ There is 
no animal that arrives at so great a bulk as this, from so small 
a beginning.^^ It is armed also with claws, and has a skin, 
^'^ Many of the ancients have described the crocodile ; of these, the most 
important, for the correctness of the description, are Herodotus, B. ii. c. 
68; Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ii. c. 10, et alibi ; and Diodorus Siculus, 
B. i.— B. 
8^ The tongue of the crocodile is flat, and, as afterwards stated, B. xi. 
0. 65, adheres to the lower jaw, so as to he incapable of motion. — B. 
S9 This account was first given by Herodotus, ubi supra; and, from the 
form of the head and the neighbouring parts, depicts what would naturally 
occur to the observer ; but it is not correct. The actual state of the parts, 
and their connection with each other, as Cuvier informs us, were first 
satisfactorily explained by Geoffroi Saint Hilaire. — B. 
90 ^lian, Anim. Nat. B. v. c. 52, observes, that this is the case with 
the tortoise, and similar animals. — B. 
^ 91 Cuvier says, that when it leaves the egg, the young animal is only 
six inches long, and that it idtimately attains a size of from thirty to 
forty feet, — B. 
