Like the sea-turtles, the crocodiles generally deposit their eggs, which are about the size of those of a goose, and covered with a calcareous shell, in holes made in the sand, leaving them to be hatched by the warm rays of the tropical sun. In some parts of America, however, they have been observed to resort to a more ingenious method, denoting a degree of provident instinct which could hardly have been expected in a cold-blooded reptile. Raising a small hillock on the banks of the river, and hollowing it out in the middle, they collect a quantity of leaves and other vegetable matters, in which they deposit their eggs. These are covered with the leaves, and are hatched by the heat extricated during their putrefaction, along with that of the atmosphere.
Callous to every other generous sentiment, the female Cayman continues for some time after their birth to watch over her young with great care. One day, as Richard Schomburgk, accompanied by an Indian, was busy fishing on the banks of the Essequibo, he suddenly heard in the water a strange noise, resembling the mewing of young cats. With eager curiosity he climbed along the trunk of a tree overhanging the river, about three feet above the water, and saw beneath him a brood of young alligators, about a foot and a half long. On his seizing and lifting one of them out of the water, the mother, a creature of prodigious size, suddenly emerged with an appalling roar, making desperate efforts to reach her wriggling and screeching offspring, and increasing in rage every time Schomburgk tantalised her by holding it out to her. Having been wounded with an arrow, she retired for a few moments, and then again returned with redoubled fury, lashing the waters into foam by the repeated strokes of her tail. Schomburgk now cautiously retreated, as in case of a fall into the water below, he would have had but little reason to expect a friendly reception, the monster pertinaciously following him to the bank, but not deeming it advisable to land, as here it seemed to feel its helplessness. The scales of the captured young one were quite soft and pliable, as it was only a few days old, but it already had the peculiar musk-like smell which characterises the full-grown reptile.
The sight of the first crocodile he meets with, lying on a flat sand-bank of the Nile, is a great event in the traveller’s life in Egypt. With all the eagerness of curiosity he first seizes his telescope to have a look at the monster, and then his gun, to drive, if possible, a bullet through its harnessed skin. But long before the enemy approaches, the wary reptile creeps slowly into the river, and plunging into the water, mocks all further pursuit. If the sportsman wishes to become better acquainted with the leviathan, he must wander farther to the South. The thousands of crocodile mummies piled up in the pits of Monfaloot, prove that in ancient times the dreaded reptile must have been common in the land of the Pharaohs; at present this can only be affirmed of the Sudan, where one may reckon with certainty upon finding a crocodile upon every sand-bank of the two Niles. The favourite resorts of the crocodile are quiet places in the rivers, where it can bask undisturbed in the sun; the cataracts it seems are not to its taste. It is no lover of change, for old men affirm that since their childhood they have seen the same crocodile invariably make its appearance upon the same island, nor is there reason to doubt their word, as the reptile attains an extreme old age. A life of a hundred years is exceptional with man, with the crocodile it is probably but a part of its existence. At its birth the animal issues from an egg not bigger than that of a goose; it grows very slowly like all amphibia, and yet reaches the enormous length of twenty feet. When bursting its shell it is scarce nine inches long; after a year it attains the double, sometimes the triple length, and then grows slower. On comparing the full-grown with the new-born crocodile, one can hardly conceive how this neat little creature can ever expand to such a size.
In spite of its unwieldy appearance, the crocodile is by no means awkward in its movements. The web uniting the four toes of its hind feet, and its long oar-like tail, enable it to catch fish without difficulty, but also on land it is far from being slow. According to Brehm, an excellent observer, it moves in every direction with the greatest ease, and is able to turn in a circle, the diameter of which is about equal to its length—so that running backwards and forwards, so warmly recommended by the inventors of fables, as the best means to escape the reptile, would hardly be of use. Fortunately, the crocodile on land never gives occasion to show the fallacy of this method, as it invariably runs away at the approach of man. During his journeys in Fassokl, Dr. Penney disturbed a crocodile which had hidden itself in a heap of dried leaves. The animal fled at the approach of the riders, and ran bellowing in a direct line to the river, which was several miles distant. It was impossible to come up to it with the swiftest dromedaries.
The chief food of the gigantic reptile consists of fishes, but nothing living, which it can reach and master, comes amiss to its voracity. Land animals it generally surprises while drinking. Slowly it approaches, swimming under the surface of the water; then suddenly darts its head forward, seizes its prey, drags it into the water, and leisurely devours it, though as some believe not before the carcass is in a certain state of putrefaction. Its human victims are generally those whom it seizes while wading into the river to fetch water. The dogs in the neighbourhood of the Nile hate and fear the crocodile. While a dog born in the interior of the country will approach the stream without any signs of shyness, the others are extremely cautious, drink quickly, having all the time an attentive eye upon the water. Their hatred shows itself in their rage at sight of a great lizard.
But the natives also testify on every occasion their but too well-founded fear of the harnessed monster, for in all Sudan there is not a village on the banks of the two rivers which has not to deplore the loss of more than one of its inhabitants from the insidious attack of the crocodile.
According to the natives, the hideous reptile possesses a true friend in a small bird (Hyas Ægyptiacus), called by the Arabs Rhafihr-el-Timsach, or the ‘crocodile’s guardian’—a not inappropriate name, though the bird performs the part of a guardian not from any friendly feeling but accidentally. It lives on the islands and flat banks of the Nile and its tributaries, and being extremely swift has no reason to fear the crocodile. It runs without the least hesitation over the back of the sleeping monster, feeds on the leeches and water-insects that may have settled there, and seems to consider it as harmless as a log of wood. Its habit of uttering a piercing cry at the sight of man betrays his approach to the crocodile, who generally awakes and creeps into the water.
The young of the crocodiles have no less numerous enemies than those of the snakes. Many an egg is destroyed in the hot sand by small carnivora, or birds, before it can be hatched; and as soon as the young creep out of the broken shell, and instinctively move to the waters, the herons, cranes and other long-legged wading birds gobble up many of them, so that their span of life is short indeed. In the water they are not only the prey of various sharp-toothed fishes, but even of the males of their own species, while the females do all they can to protect them. Even man not only kills the crocodile in self-defence, or for the sake of sport, but for the purpose of regaling upon its flesh. In the Siamese markets, crocodiles, large and small, may be seen hanging in the butchers’ stalls; and Captain Stokes,[30] who more than once supped off alligators’ steaks, informs us that the meat is by no means bad.
According to one of those zoological fables which by frequent repetition usurp the authority of facts, the Ichneumon or Pharaoh’s Rat, a small animal closely resembling the weasel tribe, is supposed to be the most dangerous enemy of the full grown crocodile. It is said to creep into the maw of the unwieldy reptile when asleep, to penetrate into its stomach, to tear its heart, and then with its sharp teeth to cut its way out of the dead Leviathan’s body. In plain truth the Ichneumon is a far more dangerous enemy to rats, mice, lizards, snakes and little birds, than to the huge crocodile, and instead of being esteemed for his imaginary service as he is supposed to have been by the ancient Egyptians, is detested by the fellah as the active plunderer of his pigeon cots and hen roosts. A similar fable relates that in the rivers of America, a tortoise of the genus Cinyxis, after having been swallowed by the alligator, and thanks to its shelly case arriving unharmed in its stomach, eats its way out again with its sharp beak, thus putting the monster to an excruciating death.
I have already mentioned, in the chapter on the Llanos, that in many tropical countries the aridity of the dry season produces a similar torpidity in reptile life to that which is caused by the cold of winter in the higher latitudes. In Ceylon, when the tanks become exhausted, the marsh-crocodiles are sometimes encountered wandering in search of water in the jungle; but generally, during the extreme drought, they bury themselves in the sand, where they remain in a state of torpor, till released by the recurrence of the rains. Sir Emerson Tennent, whilst riding across the parched bed of a tank, was shown the recess, still bearing the form and impress of the crocodile, out of which the animal had been seen to emerge the day before. A story was also related to him of an officer who, having pitched his tent in a similar position, had been disturbed during the night by feeling a movement of the earth below his bed, from which, on the following day, a crocodile emerged, making its appearance from beneath the matting.