Crocodile-ana.

Otago Witness, Issue 2179, 28 November 1895, Page 55

Crocodile-ana.

From an amusing article on the crccodile in the Pall Mall Gazette we learn that that animal's methods of capturing large game are plural as well »8 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 hi* prey, , be will waddle into the water, aud there drown the straggler. He will then drag his victim ashore and bury him in mud or sand, and wait for days before he gorges him -elf. By an interposition of Providence a crocodile's neck is so stiff that if you are standing alongside of him, about amidships, and he want* to look you straight in the eye, he is compelled to turn his whole body. This gives a nervous person lime to take to the woods, if there are any. There is little in the animal kingdom th&t can look so dead and be so much alive as a crocodile. The number of unsuspecting persons, who have mistaken him for a log, and have failed to ditcover their mistake until it was too late to be of any benefit to them, will never be known. No white man has ever been able to swallow

a bite of crocodile and keep id down. Th« flavour is several degrees more overpowering than a ten-year-old egg. The crocodile will sometimes go without food for a yew. Upon waking from a nap of thil duratiou he ia something to be avoided. A male crocodile pays no attention to his children, unless he can catch thorn alone, when' he makes a meal of them.