AGE Ol GEINE SH eve riCAT Olx 
age ; indeed, its capacity for longevity has given rise 
to a proverbial expression comparable to Methusaleh 
or Old Parr among ourselves. The Chinese zoologists, 
or curiosity-mongers, to use a more descriptive term, 
variously termed the N’Go a fish, a dragon, and a 
tortoise. They prized it in medicine, and Marco Polo 
himself was gravely of opinion that its merits were 
high ; the gall he recommended as a cure for the bite 
of a mad dog. But its usefulness is by no means con- 
fined to this disease, for, like certain much-advertised 
drugs among ourselves, there appears to be no ill that 
Chinese flesh is heir to that the carcass of this beast 
will not furnish remedies for. As alligators and croco- 
diles go, this Chinese representative of the family is 
not large; it is a dwarf beside the twenty-foot long 
crocodiles, and still more so when compared with the 
huge extinct Siwalik crocodilian, which measured 
fifty feet from snout to end of tail. Of other croco- 
diles and alligators plenty of examples are certain to 
be in the Reptile House. 
