crocodile’s maternal care. 
403 
thick underwood, to avoid the predatory visits of the 
father. In this season of care and of watchfulness 
over them, she is ferocious, daring, and morose, 
guarding with inquietude her young wherever they 
wander. She turns when they turn, and by whining 
and grunting, shows a particular solicitude to keep 
them in such pools only as are much too shallow for 
the resort of the full-grown reptile. When I was in 
Yasica, a river district of that name, as many as forty 
had been discovered in one of these secret resorts ; 
but in half an hour, when the boys who had found 
them out returned to visit their hiding-place, they saw 
only the traces of the coming and going of the watch- 
ful parent who had led them away to some further 
and safer retreat. In this period of their helplessness, 
the mother feeds them with her masticated food, dis- 
gorging it out to them as the dog does to its pups. 
In general it is rarely seen otherwise than crouch- 
ing with its belly to the earth, and crawling with a 
curvilinear motion ; but at this time it may be ob- 
served firmly standing on its feet. This is the atti- 
tude of anger and attack ; and its spring is quick, 
a sort of agile leap, by no means short in distance. 
During all this time of protection and dependence, 
is heard the voice, by which the young makes its 
wants known, and the parent assures its offspring of 
its superintendence. It is the yelping hark of the 
dog, and the whining of the puppy, 
“ From all these facts I take it that when the 
sound of the dog’s bark is heard, the Caymans press 
to the spot from which it issues, agitated by two 
several passions, — t\\e females to protect their young, 
