Footnote 2862: [(return)]
HUMBOLDT relates a similar story as occurring at Calabazo, in Venezuela.—Personal Narrative, c, xvi.
Footnote 2881: [(return)]
A remarkable instance of the vitality of the common crocodile, C. biporcatus, was related to me by a gentleman at Galle: he had caught on a baited hook an unusually large one, which his coolies disembowelled, the aperture in the stomach being left expanded by a stick placed across it. On returning in the afternoon with a view to secure the head, they found that the creature had crawled for some distance, and made its escape into the water.
"A curious incident occurred some years ago on the Maguruganga, a stream which flows through the Pasdun Corle, to join the Bentolle river. A man was fishing seated on the branch of a tree that overhung the water; and to shelter himself from the drizzling rain, he covered his head and shoulder with a bag folded into a shape common with the natives. While in this attitude, a leopard sprang upon him from the jungle, but missing its aim, seized the bag and not the man, and fell with it into the river. Here a crocodile, which had been eyeing the angler is despair, seized the leopard as it fell, and sunk with it to the bottom."—Letter from GOONE-RATNE Modliar, interpreter of the Supreme Court, 10th Jany., 1861.
Footnote 2891: [(return)]
Testudo stellata.
Footnote 2901: [(return)]
HOOKER'S Himalayan Journals, vol. i. p. 37.
Footnote 2902: [(return)]
Cryptopus granum, SCHÖPF; DR. KELAART, in his Prodromus (p. 179), refers this to the common Indian species, C. punctata; but it is distinct. It is generally distributed in the lower parts of Ceylon, in lakes and tanks. It is the one usually put into wells to act the part of a scavenger. By the Singhalese it is named Kiri-ibba.
Footnote 2911: [(return)]
Of the Emys trijuga, the fresh water tortoise figured on preceding page, the technical characteristics are;—vertical plates lozenge-shaped; shell convex and oval; with three more or less distinct longitudinal keels; shields corrugated; with areola situated in the upper posterior corner. Shell brown, with the areolæ and the keels yellowish; head brown, with a yellow streak over each eye.
Footnote 2912: [(return)]
Chelonia virgata, Schweig.
Footnote 2921: [(return)]
ARISTOTLE was aware of the fact that the turtle will live after the removal of the heart.—De Vita et Morte, ch. ii.
Footnote 2931: [(return)]
[Greek: "Tiktontai de ara en tautê tê thalattê, kai chelônai megistai, ônper oun ta elytra orophoi ginontai kai gar esti kai pentekaideka pêchôn en chelôneion, ôs hypoikein ouk oligous, kai tous hêlious pyrodestatous apostegei, kai skian asmenois parechei.">[—Lib. xvi. c. 17. Ælian copied this statement literatim from MEGASTHESES, Indica Frag. lix. 31. May not Megasthenes have referred to some tradition connected with the gigantic fossilised species discovered on the Sewalik Hills, the remains of which are now in the Museum at the East India House?
Footnote 2932: [(return)]
Caretta imbricata, Linn.