HABITS OF CEOCODILES. 
9 
it is dangerous for a single person to approach the spot^ as she will 
fearlessly attack and give chase at considerable speed. After such 
a circumstance, or if, on her return from feeding, she should dis- 
cover traces of man or beast in the vicinity of her charge, the wary 
crocodile will decamp with her eggs in her mouth, and seek for 
another locality. 
From various sources I am informed the hatching-time takes 
ninety days; therefore it is during the first increase of the Nile 
that exclusion takes place. The mother, then carrying off her 
young in her mouth, will place them in the shallow water of some 
retired creek, or in a crevice in the bank, where she will nourish 
them until able to accompany her and prey upon small fry for them- 
selves. 
It is well known that these reptiles, although they seize their 
prey under water, cannot under the same circumstances swallow it, 
and must proceed to shore for that purpose, where, resting on their 
forelegs and the head out of water, they are enabled to feed. Large 
animals or man when caught are retained under water until putre- 
faction commences before they are devoured. 
]y[en who in Egypt devote much of their time to the destruc- 
tion of these animals, like our friend Saleh Abt il Samad, throw 
up low embankments, twenty or thirty yards from the river-side, in 
localities where they love to bask in the sun. A few days suffice to 
accustom the wary reptiles to the new objects, and, lying close in 
ambush behind one or the other, the skilled hunter seldom passes 
a day without a shot. Swimming lazily towards the shore, with the 
tip of the nose and eyes only above the water, a careful survey is 
taken before the crocodile ventures to expose itself on the land ; 
then, sometimes lingering on the water^s edge, at others taking a 
short run, the reptile will cast a hurried and uneasy glance around. 
