The Crocodile.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume 31, Issue 9220, 8 June 1900, Page 3

The Crocodile.

| There !s little in the animal kingdom ;that can look so dead and be so much alive as a crocodile. The number of unsuspecting persona who have taken him for a 'log, and have failed to discover their mistake until it was too late to be of any benefit to them, will never be known. In ancient times, several years prior to the British occupation of Egypt, some of the people of that country worshipped the crocodile as a god, there being nothing else like him. They fed him on dainties, and togged him out with jewellery. In other parts of Egypt, however, the natives looked upon him as a devil. Having no firearms, they did not fill him with lead, but tr.ey managed to immolate him successfully with such weapons as were fashionable at that time. The crocodile is not so numerous in the Nile a3 he was in the days of the Rameses family ; in fact, he rather shuns the river now below the second cataract on account of the annoyances inseparable from tourist traffic. It seems impossible for a tourist to see a crocodile without trying to plug him with a revolver, and to a reptile that is fond of a quiet life this sort of thing Is simply insufferable. He will not molest a man unless he can take him at a disadvantage, and so long as a man does not, unthinkingly, step on him the crocodile will go his way and calmly await his opportunity. He feeds on fish, but for a course dinner he would rather have humanity, black preferred, which "shows you there is no accounting for taste even amoing reptiles. His methods for capturing large game are plural as well as singular. Sometimes he will lie on a river bank, partly covered with sand or mud, until an absent-minded native wanders within reach. Having grabbed his prey, he wifl waddle into the water, and there drown t)«e struggler. He will then drag his victim ashore, and bury him in sand or mud, and -wait for days before he gorges himself.