Like the rattlesnake, crocodiles seem to possess the power of fascinating their prey, or rather of completely depriving their victims of all presence of mind, by the terror which they inspire. In Sumatra, Marsden once saw a large crocodile in a river, looking up to an overhanging tree, on which a number of small monkeys were sitting. The poor creatures were so beside themselves for fright, that instead of escaping to the land, which they might easily have done, they hurried towards the extremities of the branches, and at length fell into the water, where the dreadful monster was awaiting them.
Crocodiles sometimes indulge in strange wanderings. Chamisso mentions one having been drifted to Eap, one of the Carolines, where it was killed after having devoured a woman; and about thirty years ago, the inhabitants of one of the Feejee Islands were equally astonished and alarmed at seeing a large crocodile emerge from the lagune, and lazily creep on shore. At first they took it for some marine deity; but it soon proved that its visit was not of a beneficent nature, as it seized and devoured nine of them at various intervals. After many unavailing attempts to destroy the monster, it was at length caught with a sling passed over the bough of a large tree, the other end of the rope being held at a distance by fourteen men who lay concealed, while one of the party offered himself as a bait to entice the reptile to run into the snare. Captain Fitzroy (‘Voyage of the Beagle’), who relates the fact, supposes that the animal must have been drifted all the way from the East Indies—a voyage which, in fact, is not more surprising than to see a turtle land upon the shores of the North Sea, or a sperm whale flounder about in the Thames.
Like many other of the lower animals, the crocodile, when surprised, endeavours to save himself by feigning death. Sir Emerson Tennent relates an amusing anecdote of one that was found sleeping several hundred yards from the water. ‘The terror of the poor wretch was extreme when he awoke and found himself discovered and completely surrounded. He was a hideous creature, and evidently of prodigious strength, had he been in a condition to exert it; but consternation completely paralysed him. He started to his feet, and turned round in a circle, hissing and clacking his bony jaws, with his ugly green eye intently fixed upon us. On being struck, he lay perfectly quiet and apparently dead. Presently he looked round cunningly, and made a rush towards the water; but on a second blow he lay again motionless. We tried to rouse him, but without effect; pulled his tail, slapped his back, struck his hard scales, and teased him in every way, but all in vain: nothing would induce him to move, till, accidentally, my son, a boy of twelve years old, tickled him gently under the arm, and in an instant he drew it close to his side, and turned to avoid a repetition of the experiment. Again he was touched under the other arm, and the same emotion was exhibited, the great monster twisting about like an infant to avoid being tickled.’
HUMMING-BIRDS.
CHAPTER XXVII.
TROPICAL BIRD LIFE.
The Toucan—Its Quarrelsome Character—The Humming-birds—Their wide Range over the New World—Their Habits—Their Enemies—Their Courage—The Cotingas—The Campanero—The Tangaras—The Manakins—The Cock of the Rock—The Troopials—The Baltimore—The Pendulous Nests of the Cassiques—The Mocking-bird—Strange Voices of Tropical Birds—The Goat-Sucker’s Wail—The Organista—The Cilgero—The Flamingos—The Scarlet Ibis—The Jabiru—The Roseate Spoon-bill—The Jacana—The Calao—The Sun-birds—The Melithreptes—The Argus—The Peacock—Tropical Waders of the Old World—The African Ibis—The Numidian Crane—Australian Birds—The Lyre Bird—The Birds of Paradise—African Weaving-birds—Social Grosbeak—The Baya—The Tailor-bird—The Honey Eaters—The Rock Warbler—The Dicæum—The Bower-birds—The Talegalla—Birds of Passage.
Useful in many respects to man, no class of animals is more interesting or agreeable to him than that of the Birds, whether we consider the beauty of their plumage, the grace of their movements, the melody of their voice, or the instinct that regulates their migrations and prompts them to construct their nests; so that their study forms, without doubt, one of the most attractive departments in the whole range of natural history.
But it is at the same time one of the most difficult, particularly in countries where man has not yet mastered the powers of vegetation, where numberless creepers and bush-ropes render the forest impenetrable, and the pathless wilderness obstructs the observer at every step. Thus it is by no means surprising that so many secrets still veil the life of the tropical birds—that comparatively so little is known as yet of their economy and mode of existence.