288 
pliny's natueal history. 
[Book VIII. 
that is proof against all blows. It passes the day on land, and 
the night in the water, in both instances on account of the 
warmth.^^ When it has glutted itself with fish, it goes to 
sleep on the banks of the river, a portion of the food always 
remaining in its mouth ; upon which, a little bird, which in 
Egypt is known as the trochilus, and, in Italy, as the king of 
the birds, for the purpose of obtaining food, invites the croco- 
dile to open its jaws ; then, hopping to and fro, it first 
cleans the outside of its mouth, next the teeth, and then the 
inside, while the animal opens its jaws as wide as possible, 
in consequence of the pleasure which it experiences from the 
titillation.^^ It is at these moments that the ichneumon, seeing 
it fast asleep in consequence of the agreeable sensation thus 
produced, darts down its throat like an arrow, and eats away 
its intestines.^* 
CHAP. 38. THE SCIITCTJS. 
Like the crocodile, but smaller even than the ichneumon, is 
the scincus,^^ which is also produced in the Mle, and the fiesh of 
which is the most effectual antidote against poisons, and acts as 
a powerful aphrodisiac upon the male sex. Eut so great a pest 
was the crocodile to prove, that JS'ature was not content with 
giving it one enemy only ; the dolphins, therefore, which enter 
92 Herodotus says, that it remains all night in the water, as being 
warmer than the external air. So also Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ii. c. 
10.— B. 
93 The water of the Nile abounds with small leeches, which attach to 
the throat of the crocodile, and, as it has no means of removing them, it 
allows a little bird to enter its nioutli for this purpose ; this is described 
hj Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ix. c. 6, and by iElian, Anim. Nat. B. iii. c. 
2.— B. 
9^ Although this account is sanctioned by all the ancient naturalists, it 
is called in question by Cu^ier ; Ajasson, vol. vi. p. 441 ; Lemaire, vol. iii. 
p. 421.— B. 
95 There is a small lizard, called by the modern naturalists the Lacerta 
scincus ; but Cuvier conceives that this cannot be the animal here referred 
to, because it is so very much smaller than the ichneumon, that no one 
would have thought of comparing them; and, what seems a better reason, 
because it is not found in the Nile. From the account of the scincus in 
B. xxviii. c. 80, it is probable that the animal here referred to is a species 
of monitor, popularly called the land crocodile. Herodotus, B. iv. c- 192, 
speaks of the land crocodile as found in Libya ; it is also mentioned by 
Pausanias, Corinthiaca, c. 20, and by Prosper Alpinus, ^gypt. B. iv. c. 5. 
— B. The scincus is probably the " Lacerta ouaran" of Cuvier. 
