(_Crocodilus niloticus_)
To the ancient Egyptians the timsa, or Nile crocodile, the champsa
of Herodotus, was a familiar reptile; but from the lower and middle
portion of the Nile, as far up as Thebes, the species has long since
been exterminated, although it is still abundant in East and South
Africa. Elsewhere it occurs in Madagascar, and still survives, although
sparingly, in Syria, more especially in the Zerka (= Crocodile) River
near Cæsarea. In Biblical times crocodiles were, however, abundant in
the Holy Land; and there is little doubt that the “leviathan” of the
Book of Job refers to these noisome reptiles. Till nearly the fifteenth
century it also seems that crocodiles lived in Greece and the Isles
of the Grecian Archipelago; and at that date a huge crocodile’s skull
was jealously preserved and exhibited at Rhodes. It is these ancient
south European crocodiles which probably gave rise to the legend of St.
George and the Dragon and other myths of a kindred nature.
In popular estimation there is much confusion between crocodiles and
alligators; and in India the former are almost invariably called
alligators, although there is not a single representative of that
group in the whole country. Indeed, alligators are confined to China
and America; those of South America, properly known as caimans,
differing from the typical Mississippi species by having a bony
armour on the under as well as on the upper surface. There are many
characters distinguishing crocodiles from alligators; one of the most
easily recognised being that the fourth lower tooth of a crocodile
bites into a notch on the outer side of the upper jaw, so that its
summit is visible when the mouth is closed, whereas in an alligator
the corresponding tooth is received into a pit, so that the tip is
completely concealed when the reptile shuts its enormous mouth.
True crocodiles, which, with alligators, caimans, and gavials, are
the largest of living reptiles, are now represented by about eleven
species, whose combined range includes Africa, southern Asia, northern
Australia, and tropical America. India possesses two species, the
broad-nosed muggar (_Crocodilus palustris_), and the narrow-nosed
estuarine crocodile (_C. porosus_); the former of which ranges to
Ceylon, Burma, and the Malay Peninsula and Islands, while the latter,
which enters salt-water freely, and is sometimes found far out to
sea, extends from India, Ceylon, and the south of China to northern
Australia and the Solomon and Fiji Islands.
[Illustration]
Crocodiles may grow to a length of 18 and probably 20 feet or more,
and are powerful creatures, which are the pests of the waters they
frequent, seizing and dragging down women and men who come to draw
water, and gripping by the nose cattle and other animals which come
to drink. A beast thus seized has little chance of escape, no matter
what may be its size, as it is taken at a disadvantage and rendered
comparatively helpless; but there is a well-authenticated story of a
Nile crocodile seizing a rhinoceros by one of the hind-legs just as
it was about to leave the river, and eventually dragging the enormous
beast, despite its frantic efforts, backwards into deep water, where it
was drowned.
The prey is, indeed, always killed by drowning, after which the carcase
is dragged ashore and concealed among reeds or other covert, where it
is left until decomposition has set in before being devoured. A large
proportion of the food of the Nile crocodile is stated, however, to
consist of fish; and snails, water-fowl, and carrion are also devoured
by these ravenous reptiles. When in repose, crocodiles lie like logs in
the water, or on the neighbouring sand and mud banks, but the slightest
sound awakens them to activity.
Hearing seems indeed to be the sense most strongly developed in
crocodiles; and it is upon this that they depend in ascertaining the
presence of prey. Smell, touch, and taste appear to be but poorly
developed; and the tongue is affixed to the lower surface of the mouth
throughout its entire length. Crocodiles are furnished with glands
secreting a musky substance, much esteemed by the Sudanis for anointing
their hair and bodies, and thus producing what is to them, no doubt, an
agreeable odour.
All crocodiles lay hard-shelled, oval eggs, about the size of those of
a goose. These are deposited by the female, to the number of from about
twenty to ninety, a yard or so deep in the sand of the river-bank,
where they are carefully covered up by means of her tail, and then left
to mature by the action of the sun’s rays. The mother appears, however,
to keep watch in the neighbourhood of the nest, and when the eggs are
ready to hatch, their occupants utter a peculiar sound which attracts
the parent to their assistance.