HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
51 
cipally upon fish, and may be seen and heard chasing their 
prey in the waters of the lake with astonishing velocity, 
and apparently in concert with each other. They fasten 
their teeth upon any animal that approaches in silence 
their domain. Bullocks are often seized as they are 
swimming across the water, and are sometimes successfully 
attacked whilst drinking. But besides preying upon the 
animals that venture within their reach, they seize and 
eat with great voracity their own young. They have the 
sagacity to watch at those places where the females deposit 
their eggs, for the appearance of the young, which, on 
bursting the shell, usually run directly to the water. 
Many of the natives state that they have often seen a line 
of old crocodiles station themselves near the banks on 
which eggs have been deposited; and when the young ones 
have, in emerging from their shell, hastened to the water, 
their first progress through this their genial element, has 
only been a passage to the open sepulchres edged round 
with terrific teeth, which the extended jaws of the close- 
formed file of full-grown crocodiles have presented, and by 
which they have been instantly devoured. 
Sometimes the young crocodiles take the wrong direction, 
and are caught by the natives in the rice grounds. Many 
of the crocodiles’ eggs are destroyed by birds, especially 
by vultures, and also by serpents, but many more by the 
natives, who take off the rind or shell, boil the eggs, and 
dry them in the sun; after which, they are preserved for 
use or sale. A single family have been seen to have as many 
as five hundred eggs drying at one time. The crocodiles 
always deposit their eggs on the sand; and seek the par¬ 
tial concealment afforded by some overhanging branch, or 
cave, or hole in the sand, or a very retired situation. It is 
not known what number of eggs are deposited at a time, 
