TRAINING CROCODILES

Evening Star, Issue 19892, 14 June 1928, Page 3

TRAINING CROCODILES

HOW IT IS DONE There is no means of completely training crocodiles. The only way they can be made tractable is by constantly working with them (writes Captain Wall, a well-known French crocodile breeder, iii the ‘Daily Mail’). Even then they will forget one in a very short while. For instance, once I have set my animals at liberty, in their enclosure at home, it would be very dangerous for mo to approach them after they bad been basking for a while in the sun. It is only when their skins begin to crack with heat and they are forced to retire to more sheltered spots that they become at all amenable. If you are attacked by a crocodile the most effective defence is to hit the animal sharply on the nose, where it is extremely sensitive. In the old days when the rivers of America and India swarmed with these ugly-looking monsters, hunting them was an exceedingly dangerous enterprise. Nowadays their capture is less hazardous. They are caught by means of a long and strong bar ,;neasuring about 10ft, at the end of which is attached a hook. When the crocodile has caught its teeth in the hook it is dragged to the surface and lassoed. A crocodile will often consume 501 b of meat at one meal, although it is ablo to go without food for two or three months. Its dipt usually includes the lungs and livers of horses and cattle, and sometimes fish. Heine cannibals by nature, crocodiles will also consume thejr smaller fry. Crocodiles breed in the Northern Hemisphere during June and July. The female lays roughly from fifty to sixty comparatively small white eggs at the rate of one a minute. After the eggs have been laid the mother buries them under a slight layer of sand and foliage, and leaves them there to incubate.

Curiously enough, when the crocodile is caught wild it will always hibernate. whereas when born in captivity it will remain active throughout the winter.

Crocodiles sometimes live to a very great age. There is a crocodile still living on a farm in the Southern States of America which is reputed to he over 800 years old. A crocodile’s age is determined by the width of its snout, which broadens a quarter of an inch every fifty years. The skin of a crocodile is worth roughly from £3 to £5, though it sometimes, varies according to the age of the animal. Only the skin covering the I ,stomach is used.