CROCODILES AND ALLIGATORS—DECEPTIVE APPEARANCES—AN UNFORTUNATE
PECCARY—AN AMBUSH BY THE RIVER—LIFE AND DEATH STRUGGLES.
The most interesting thing I know about crocodiles and alligators—and
this is a remark which applies to a good many animals—is the way in
which they procure their food. This they do mostly, and by preference,
in the water, but they have, also, a habit of lying in wait upon the
mud of river-banks, until some animal approaches sufficiently near to
be within their reach. Lying sunk in the mud, and of the colour of mud
themselves, they may well be mistaken for a log or drifted tree-trunk,
for they make no movement, and seem to be quite inanimate. Only their
eye, if one happens to catch it, proclaims that they draw the breath
of life. A wild pig, or some other animal fond of rooting in the mud,
sees the long, black, shapeless object, and bestows upon it, at first,
a scrutinising glance. “Looks like a log,” is probably its internal
comment; “still, from time to time, I’ll keep my eye upon it.” It does
so, but as the supposed log is always precisely in the same place and
position, it becomes strengthened in its first conclusion, and soon
ceases to think anything more about it. By this, in the course of
grubbing and grazing—for there may be reed-beds, or other delectable
patches, scattered about over the mud—our pig—one of a scattered herd—has
got somewhat nearer to the long, dark object, and with occasional
deviations and wanderings away into safety, continues, on the whole, to
get nearer still. It is by mere chance that he does so. There is no need
to, any other direction would do as well, but fate is upon him, he is
the foredoomed one, the “one more unfortunate,” the one to “be taken”
amidst the many to “be left”—some for another time. Looking up, suddenly,
with the fresh-turned mud upon his nose, he is surprised to see the log
right beside him, so near that he might jump on the top of it, were he so
minded, and—and by the jaguars!—he _is_ so minded. He will do it, he has
run down logs before, he rather likes it; sometimes, too, by ripping up
the bark one may get at something—that upon a log which he thought, not
long ago, in his overwariness, might get at him. The recollection gives
piquancy to the situation. He brings all four legs together, and rises in
a light, elastic spring. In the very moment of doing so—a second or so
before, perhaps, but the motion cannot be arrested now—he notices that a
change has come over the supposed log. It has moved; nay, it is moving.
One end of it, the longest, thinnest end, the tail end—oh, heavens! _the
tail_—is gliding away in a curve, till now its tip almost touches the
further side, not of a log, but of a gigantic alligator, whose head, with
grinning jaws, is at the same time raised, and whose greeny, baleful eye,
falling, like death, upon the deceived animal, seems to claim him for its
own.
What can he do? All too late the fraud is revealed to him; no log, but a
cruel saurian that has, all along, been waiting for its prey. What can he
do now?—poor miserable, cheated pig, so happy but a moment before, and
now—— He would stop himself if he could, but he is in mid-air and cannot
check the impetus. On he must; but even so—even in mid-air thought may
be active. Our pig’s brain is working. He has escaped from as great a
danger. He remembers that time with the jaguar. Courage! even now. Come
down on the alligator’s back, that he must do, but the instant he touches
it he will spring lightly up again, and far away on the other side.
Then—there is hope yet. One more spring, a race, and a scamper, and——
But the tail of the alligator is by this time bent round as tight as it
will go—it has not taken long—and suddenly, like a bow when the arrow is
loosed, it flies back, and then with a mighty swing comes round in the
opposite direction. It meets the flying body of the pig, not directly,
but with a tremendous sideway blow; there is a heavy, dull sound, a
squeal, choked suddenly as for want of breath, and hurled obliquely from
its original course, the luckless and now almost inanimate creature falls
in a dead heap, some yards beyond the saurian’s head. Recovery from such
a blow would be in any case doubtful, but the pig has no time to recover.
With a sudden, swift rush the alligator is upon him, and seizing the
body by the skin, which it holds puckered up between its front teeth, it
shakes it furiously, as a terrier would a rat, and then half drags, half
pushes it before it, as it crawls through the mud, to the water’s edge.
The herd, alarmed by the sudden commotion, yet scarcely knowing what
has happened, scatter at first, then rush all together and stand still,
gazing from a safe distance at the suddenly revealed monster. Then,
lowering their heads and whisking their tails in the air, they dash in
wild gallop from the scene of the catastrophe.
The pig that has thus fallen a victim is most likely to have been the
little South American peccary, for this habit of lying in wait upon
the actual shore, and then striking suddenly with the tail, seems more
developed in the American alligators than in the crocodiles of the Old
World. The force of such a blow, when delivered by an alligator of any
size, is tremendous, sufficient, says somebody, writing to one of the
papers, to break the leg of an ox like a pipe-stem. According to this
account, one of the fierce bulls, common in Florida, was attacked by an
alligator, and his bellowings brought four other bulls to his assistance.
Two, if I remember, had their fore or hind legs broken, but the other
three succeeded, between them, in goring their enemy to death. It was an
exciting story. I cut it out, and still keep it somewhere—I would quote
from it if I knew where. As it is, it would take me a long time to find
again, even if I knew in what paper to look for it, for though I think it
was in the _Field_ I am not quite sure—it was several years ago. However,
there was nothing in it which seemed to me at all impossible, or even
unlikely. I am not quite sure, now, how the fight began. It would seem as
if the bulls must have found the alligator some way from the water, or
probably he would have succeeded in throwing himself into it. Perhaps the
bulls attacked him first, or perhaps he served the first one in the same
way that that other alligator did the pig.
The more usual plan, however, adopted by these great amphibious reptiles
for seizing their prey, is to lie just under the bank, in the water,
with only their eyes and the breathing-holes of their nostrils above
it, so that they are quite invisible amidst the sedge or rushes, which
commonly fringe the shore. If an animal—an ox for instance—comes down
to drink where they lie—and they are clever enough to select a good
drinking-place—they spring up and seize it by the muzzle, and then,
joining their strength to their weight, and with some powerful backward
strokes of the tail, in the water, they endeavour to overbalance it,
and make it topple down the bank. Whether they are successful, or not,
will depend on the size and strength of the animal thus seized, and
still more on how much it may be taken at a disadvantage. A powerful ox
or a buffalo—except, perhaps, the giraffe, the two largest animals that
are at all likely to be attacked—will, often, drag its assailant up the
bank, retreating backwards, and succeed, at last, in getting free from
the terrible jaws. But should it stumble, or make a false step, which is
very likely, the chances will be greatly against it. Its own weight adds,
now, to the drag of the crocodile upon it; it slides or rolls down the
incline, and, once in the water, all is soon over—it is dragged beneath
the surface and drowned.
All the crocodile family are hatched from eggs, and although the parent
is so large—perhaps twenty or thirty feet long—the eggs it lays are no
larger than those of a goose. Consequently, the young crocodiles and
alligators, in spite of their great mothers who try to look after them,
are preyed upon and devoured by a great number of creatures, birds,
fishes, various mammals, and even sometimes their own fathers. But when
they become large and strong, there is only one wild animal I know of
that cares to interfere with them, and that is the savage jaguar of South
America. How large an alligator has to get before the jaguar is afraid
to attack it, I do not know, but as Mr. Bates disturbed the creature at
his meal on one, which, he thought, had left the water to lay its eggs,
I suppose it was a fair size. Why Mr. Bates does not, himself, tell us
how large it was, and why he says nothing more upon such an interesting
subject—only just that he frightened the jaguar and found the remains
of the alligator—I really don’t know; but it is an irritating way which
travellers sometimes have. They generally go on to talk of something
not nearly so interesting, and never turn back to what you would like
to hear more about. This particular alligator had left the river-bank,
and crawled up into the forest which was some distance away from it.
This would have given the jaguar a great advantage, and perhaps it is
only under such circumstances that even he would venture to attack an
alligator of any size, since, if the latter could get to the water, all
his efforts would be in vain.
When the jaguar attacks the alligator, he is said to spring on its
back, and then tear, with all his might, at the root of its tail. This,
possibly, is with the idea of paralysing that member, thus rendering
it incapable of those mighty sweeps from side to side which are more,
almost, to be feared than even the great armed jaws. The fear of both
these weapons may deter the jaguar from clawing the throat of the
saurian, for were it to be jerked off in the latter’s struggles, it
would be more exposed to either than if it fell farther back. But why
not disembowel the creature, since that could be done—or attempted—from
almost equally far down the back? However, as far as I am aware, we have
no real evidence as to the _modus operandi_ employed by the jaguar on
these occasions, nor do I know anyone who has come nearer to witnessing
such a scene than Mr. Bates, who, however, was just too late.
Besides alligators, the jaguar, like the common cat, is fond of a meal of
fish, but unlike “the poor cat i’ the adage,” he is not afraid of wetting
his paws to get it. Such, at least, is the story told by both natives and
white men in South America, according to which he will climb out on the
branch of a tree but just overhanging the waters of some forest river,
and lie crouched there, with his paw suspended in air, till a fish swims
by near the surface, when he dexterously jerks it up and catches it in
his mouth. In Darwin’s _Journal of Researches_ a picture is given of a
jaguar thus employed, and when one sees it, one, of course, thinks that
there will be a good description of it, with, perhaps, an anecdote or
two. But the same disappointment is in store for us as in the case of the
jaguar and alligator in Mr. Bates’ book, for the grand picture has hardly
two lines of letterpress; which has vexed me so that I should call it
unfair if I were quite sure Darwin had had nothing to do with it.