EXISTING GROUP. 
J 5 
the entire body of the victim; and their teeth being adapted for seizing and 
holding fast only, and not for biting, they are obliged to mangle the carcase, 
tearing off single pieces by sudden strong jerks.” This rending process is mainly 
accomplished by lateral movements of the head and front portion of the body. 
Too often, human beings, who incautiously bathe in crocodile-haunted waters, fall 
victims to these bloodthirsty reptiles; while there are instances of people being 
seized when merely stooping down to dip water from the river’s marge. When 
seized, the only way for an unarmed man to escape is, it is said, to thrust his 
fingers into the creature’s eyes and endeavour to gouge them out. To a consider¬ 
able extent crocodiles are nocturnal in their habits, and during protracted droughts 
many of them at least are accustomed to bury themselves in the mud, where the}^ 
become torpid. 
As regards their reproduction, crocodiles lay from twenty to sixty eggs, of 
the approximate size of those of a goose, and invested with a hard, white shell. 
These are deposited in some hollow in the sand of the bank, where, after being 
covered to a greater or less depth, they are left to hatch. Whether the parent 
always assists in the incubation does not appear certain, although this has been 
proved to be the case in Madagascar by Dr. Voeltzkow. In that island the egg- 
laying season lasts from the end of August to the end of September; the usual 
number of eggs in a nest varying from twenty to thirty. The nest is excavated 
to a depth of about two feet in the dry white sand; its lateral walls being under¬ 
mined so as to allow the eggs to roll into the cavities thus formed from the 
slightly elevated centre. Upon the summit of the completed nest, which is not 
noticeable externally, the parent sleeps; and when the young crocodiles are ready 
for hatching they utter distinct notes, which are heard by the mother even 
through a layer of two feet of sand. Digging down to the eggs, the parent 
crocodile lays them open to the air, upon which the young reptiles make their 
way out by perforating the shell at one extremity by the aid of a tooth specially 
developed for this purpose, the whole process occupying as much as a couple of 
hours. When hatched, the young crocodiles are led to the water by their parent, 
whose attention they attract by uttering cries, which are, however, of a lower 
pitch than those emitted while still in the egg. 
Existing Crocodiles. 
Family Crocodilidje. 
The whole of the existing members of the order are included 
in a single family, which may be subdivided into half a dozen generic 
groups. Of these, in some respects the most specialised are the caimans and 
alligators, which, although closely allied, are now generally regarded as belonging 
to distinct genera. Both caimans and alligators are characterised by their rela¬ 
tively short and broad snouts, in which the edges of the jaws are festooned, and 
the nasal bones extend forwards to the aperture of the nostrils, 1 while the two 
1 This is shown in the figure on p. 2, where the nasals are the paired bones on the upper aspect of the skull, of 
which the narrow points just project into the cavity of the nostrils. 
