Ckocodile of the Nile. REPTILES. The Gavial. 81 
as we have stated above, Crocodiles in some parts of 
Egypt were held sacred and had divine honours 
paid to them, there were other parts of that country 
where they were held in great detestation, the natives 
pursuing them as enemies, and even eating them. A 
sentiment of religion was at the bottom of this feel- 
ing also, and it was because they believed that Typhon 
the murderer of Osiris and the genius of evil, had 
transformed himself into a Crocodile. In Afiica the 
negroes eat the flesh of the Crocodile at the present 
day, and are bold and skilful in capturing them. M. 
Adanson, who found hundi'eds of these animals in 
the Senegal during his residence there, tells us that 
one of his negroes killed a Crocodile seven feet long. 
“ He had seen him lying asleep amongst the brush- 
wood at the foot of a tree on the bank of a river. He 
approached so quietly as not to disturb it, and then 
very adroitly inflicted with his knife a blow on the 
side of his neck, undefended by the bones of the head 
or by scales, and drove it nearly through and through. 
The animal mortally wmunded, writhing back though 
with difficulty, struck the negro such a violent blow on 
his leg that he knocked him down. He rose imme- 
diately, however, without letting go his hold, and that 
he might not have anything to fear from the murderous 
jaws of the Crocodile, he enveloped them in a piece of 
cotton cloth, whilst his comrade held him by the tail. 
In order to assist him I mounted him upon his back ; 
then the negro drew his knife, and cut off his head, 
which he separated from the trunk.” In Dongola at 
the present day, the Crocodile is also caught by means 
of a harpoon for the sake of its flesh. 
In the latter years of the Republic and in the early 
part of the Empire, the Romans were made well 
acquainted with the Crocodile of the Nile. About fifty- 
eight years before the Christian era, the edile Scaurus- 
exhibited at Rome five Crocodiles from that river. 
Strabo mentions, on another occasion, that the inhabi- 
tants of Denderah brought many to the great capital. 
But the most astonishing spectacle of this sort ever 
witnessed, was when the Emperor Augustus caused the 
Flavinian Circus to be filled with water, and there 
displayed thirty-six Crocodiles, which were encountered 
by an equal number of gladiators, for the amusement 
of the Roman populace. 
M. Geoffrey St. Hilaire describes several species of 
Crocodile as inhabiting the Nile, and particularly points 
out two, which, however, are now considered as mere 
varieties. The first of these is a small species which 
he calls Crococlilus suchus, from the Greek word souhis 
{eo'Mn), by which name Strabo informs us it was 
known, and which he says is the true Sacred Crocodile 
of the ancient Egyptians, worshipped at Arsinoe. The 
second is much larger and fiercer, C. vulgaris, and is 
the species which was detested, hunted, and eaten by 
the natives. The smaller or sacred species, he says, 
followed the inundations of the Nile and the smaller 
tributaries of that river, and was often found therefore 
at a distance from the banks of the Nile. It was 
inoffensive ; and its appearance being connected with 
the annual overflow of the river, upon which their crops 
and subsistence depended, it was looked upon with a 
feeling of reverence, and became in time to be wor- 
VOL. II. 67 
shipped as a deity. The extremity of the muzzle of 
the Crocodile, according to this same author, is very 
sensitive, and he thinks that the secret of the priests 
succeeding in rendering their sacred individuals so 
tame as they were described to be, consisted in their 
touching this sensitive muzzle, by doing which, he adds, 
the Crocodile will naturally open its mouth, so that it 
may be fed. A third species was described from a 
mummied specimen taken from the Crocodile mummy 
caves at Thebes. These caves he visited himself, and 
found many Crocodiles embalmed and in perfect pre- 
servation. “ From the hand of the person who had 
deposited there the sacred relics,” he says, “ they 
passed into mine. The two acts succeeded each other 
without any further interruption than a night of thirty 
ages having rolled between them.” We will finish this 
account of the Crocodile, by stating that this is not the 
Egj'ptiau name for the animal. The name of Crocodile 
{a^o-AohsiXog) was first applied to it by the lonians, from 
the resemblance it bore to that of the lizards which 
they were in the habit of seeing on their walls, and 
which they called by that name. Herodotus tells us 
that the ancient Egyptian name for it was Champsa. 
The Coptic name at the present day is Temsah, which 
is no doubt a corruption of the old word Champsa. 
Two or three species of Crocodiles are natives of 
India and America, but we must pass on to the next 
genus, Gavialis : — 
THE GAVIAL {Gavialis Gangeticus) — Plate 7, fig. 1; 
and Plate 8, figs. 14, 14a (upper jaw and teeth) — differs 
from the crocodiles in having the jaws very long and 
very narrow ; so much so, that they form a kind of sub- 
cylindrical beak that offers a strong contrast to the size 
of the head. At the end of the beak, where the nostrils 
are j laced, we see in the male a large swelling of an oval 
form and cartilaginous structure, forming a kind of sac 
or nasal pouch, which is divided into two internally by 
a partition. The teeth are not so unequal in size and 
length as in the crocodiles, but are much more numer- 
ous. In general, they are from one hundred and 
eighteen to one hundred and twenty in number, and are 
all pretty equal, with the exception of the five or six 
first pairs in both jaws. The canines are small, quite 
anterior, and those of the lower jaw fit into a notch 
in the edge of the upper. The Gavial is a native of 
India, more particularly of the Ganges, and is one of 
the largest species of the order of reptiles to which it 
belongs. It is about seventeen feet long ; though 
Lacepede mentions the fact of there being the jaw of an 
individual in the collection in Paris which, when alive, 
must have measured upwards of thirty feet. It was 
first described by our countryman Edwards in 1756 ; 
and the name of Gavial was first applied to it by Lace- 
pede, from its Indian appellation. The Gavial feeds 
on fish chiefly, and, notwithstanding its large size, does 
not appear to be dangerous to men. It seems to have 
been known to the ancients, as HSlian speaks of a 
species of crocodile being found on the banks of the 
Ganges, which had a kind of horn on the snout. Taver- 
nier, a traveller in the East about the years 1648-50, 
seems to have encountered this species on the Ganges, 
below Tontipour. He saw a number of them lying on 
the sand on the banks of the river, and, firing at one of 
