lower jaw, as to be incapable of being stretched far for. wards, as in other animals.

Except when pressed by hunger, or with a view of depositing its eggs, this enormous creature seldom leaves the water. Its usual method is to float along upon the surface, and seize whatever animals come within its reach; but, when this method fails, it then goes closer to the bank. There it waits in patient expectation of some land animal that may come to drink; the dog, the bull, the tiger, or man himself. Nothing is to be seen on the approach, nor is its retreat discovered till it is too late for safety. It seizes the victim with a spring, and goes at a bound much farther than such an unwieldy animal could be supposed to do. Then having secured the prey, it drags it into the water, instantly sinks with it to the bottom, and in this manner quickly drowns it. Sometimes it happens that the creature wounded by the Crocodile makes its escape; in which case, the latter pursues with some celerity, and often takes it a second time. He seldom moves far from rivers except in covert and marshy places; so that, in many parts of the East, it is very dangerous to walk carelessly on the banks of unknown rivers, or among sedgy grounds; and still more so to bathe, without the utmost circumspection, in' unfrequented places. He seldom pursues his prey far on shore; and although his pace is tolerably rapid in a direct line, yet he is not sufficiently swift to overtake an active man who preserves his presence of mind,

All the rivers of Guinea are pestered with vast shoals of Crocodites. On very hot days, great numbers of

them lie basking on the banks of rivers, and as soon as they observe any one approach their place they plunge in with great violence.

Bosman says, very quaintly, "As for their crying "and subtelties to catch men, I believe them as much "as the Jews do the Gospel *.".

They are excessively voracious, and swallow all their food whole; for their mouth is neither furnished. with grinding teeth, nor have the jaws any lateral motion. They are said to swallow stones to aid digestion, in the manner of the seed-eating birds;. and they are able to sustain abstinence for many weeks t gether.

The young are produced from eggs deposited in the sand, and hatched by the heat of the sun, near the bank of some river or lake. The female is said to be extremely cautious in depositing them unobserved: the general number is from eighty to a hundred : they are not larger than those of a Goose, and are covered with a tough white skin. She fills up the hole carefully before she leaves them. In each of the two succeeding days she lays as many more, which she hides in the same manner. The eggs are hatched generally in about thirty days, when the young immediately run into the water: these are devoured by various kinds of fish, and their numbers are also lessened by supplying food to their own species. It is however in the destruction of their eggs that the most material service is effected. The Ichneumont and the Vultures, which are here found in immense num

* Bosman's Guinea, 239. † Viverra Ichneumon of Linnæus.

bers, seem peculiarly appointed by Providence to abridge their enormous fecundity, and in this capacity devour and destroy millions of the eggs.

Crocodiles are frequently seen about the rivers in Java in great numbers. The Javanese sometimes catch them with a hook and line; a circumstance that at first would seem almost incredible, since they can, with great ease, bite asunder the strongest rope. These people therefore use a very loosely twisted cord of cotton, at the end of which a hook is fastened, baited with raw flesh. When the Crocodile, after having swallowed the hook, endeavours to bite the cord asunder, his teeth only separate the fibres, and all his attempts are of no avail. When he is found to be fastened, his antagonists come upon him in great numbers, and, with the weapons they have for the purpose, soon destroy him.

In other parts of the world they are hunted by means of strong dogs properly trained, and armed with spiked collars.

The natives of Siam take Crocodiles by placing three or four strong nets across a river, at proper distances from each other; so that, if the animal breaks through the first, he may be caught in some of the others. When he finds himself fastened, he lashes every thing around him with great violence with his enormous tail. After he has struggled some time, and is become exhausted, the men approach in boats, and pierce him in the most tender parts of his body with spears.

Thunberg, ii. 290.

Labat assures us, (but whether his assertion is to be trusted or not, we cannot say,) that a negro armed only with a knife in his right hand, and his left wrapped round with thick leather, will venture boldly to attack the Crocodile in his own element. As soon as he observes his enemy near, the man puts out his left arm, which the beast immediately seizes in its mouth. He then gives it several stabs below the chin, where the skin is very tender; and the water coming in at the mouth, thus involuntarily held open, the creature is soon destroyed.

The Crocodile, from its immense size and voracious habits, is certainly an object of fear; and, by no very uncommon transition of sentiment, has also gradually become an object of veneration; and offerings are in some countries made to it as to a deity. The inhabitants of Java, when attacked by disease, will sometimes build a kind of coop, and fill it with such eatables as they think most agreeable to the Crocodiles. They place the coop upon the bank of a river or canal, in the perfect confidence that, by the means of such offerings, they shall get rid of their complaints; and persuaded that, if any person could be so wicked as to take away those viands, such person would draw upon himself the malady, for the cure of which the offering was made. The worship of Crocodiles was indeed a folly among men of antient date; as Herodotus expressly says, that " among some of the Egyptian tribes the "Crocodiles are sacred, but that they are regarded as "enemies among others. The inhabitants in the "environs of Thebes, and the lake Maris, are firmly "persuaded of their sanctity; and both these tribes

bring up and tame a Crocodile, adorning his ears "with rings of precious stones and gold, and putting "ornamental chains about his fore-feet. They also

66

regularly give him victuals, offer victims to him, " and treat him in the most respectful manner while living, and, when dead, embalm, and bury him in a "consecrated coffin."

It is said that even at this day Crocodiles are occasionally tamed in many parts of Africa, where they are kept in large ponds or lakes, as an article of magnificence with the monarchs of those regions. The Romans frequently exhibited these animals in their public spectacles and triumphs.

The eggs of the Crocodile are numbered among the delicacies of some of the African tribes, and are said to form one of their most favorite repasts.

One of the greatest curiosities in the fossil world, which the late ages have produced, is the skeleton of a large Crocodile, almost entire, that was found at a great depth under ground, bedded in stone. This was in the possession of Linkius, who wrote many tracts on natural history, and particularly an accurate description of this curious fossil. It was found in the side of a large mountain in the midland part of Germany, in a stratum of black fossil stone, somewhat like our common slate, but of a coarser texture, the same with that in which the fossil fish in many parts of the world are found. This skeleton had the back and ribs very plain, and was of a much deeper black than the rest of the stone. The part of the stone where the head lay was not found: it was irregularly