Fred suggested that it was just possible that the bird was only an inquisitive fellow, and finding the crocodile's mouth open, he looked in to see what sort of a house it would make. And the crocodile, on his part, did not think the little bird was large enough to pay him for shutting his jaws on it; and so the intruder escaped solely on account of his diminutive size.
"When you see a crocodile or an alligator asleep on a bank," the Doctor continued, "you can, perhaps, get a good shot by creeping near enough to send a bullet under his fore-leg. The skin there is not protected by scales, and a bullet will penetrate it. Especially if you have explosive balls that burst on the moment of concussion, you can tear a great hole inside your game, and seriously interfere with his digestion. I shot one once in this way on a sand-bar in the Nile, a few miles above the first cataract; he was nearly twenty feet long, and it took my men a whole day to remove his skin. I was within thirty paces of him when I fired, and, as I had good aim, I sent the bullet exactly where I wished, he gave a few convulsive movements with his tail, and then stretched out stiff and dead."
The Doctor paused; and the consul took up the conversation with an account a friend had given him of a fight between a bear and an alligator in Western Louisiana.
"My friend was out hunting one day," said the consul, "and was suddenly startled by a loud roaring in the bushes not far off. He cautiously crept near, expecting to see a couple of bulls preparing for combat; what was his astonishment to see a large bear and a full-grown alligator eying each other, and poising themselves for an encounter.
"Bruin was on his hind legs, his mouth was covered with foam, and there were several streams of blood on his black coat. The alligator was on the tiptoes of all his legs, and he lashed his tail furiously, and kept his great jaws moving as if trying their ability to close on the bear at the proper moment.
THE ALLIGATOR AND THE BEAR.
"The bear growled, and the alligator roared like a bull; and it was his roaring that had attracted my friend's attention. They had evidently indulged in a clinch before he saw them, and were making ready for a second round. For fully a minute they remained in the attitudes in which he first beheld them, and neither could make up his mind how to take the best hold. Finally Bruin dropped on all fours, and ran at the alligator; the latter met him by throwing his head and body to one side, and delivering a blow with his tail that knocked the bear over on the ground, and rolled him several yards away. The blow sounded as though it had been given with a club with the force of half a dozen men, and it is safe to say that the strongest man would have been killed by it.
"The bear was not discouraged, for he picked himself up and ran once more at the alligator. He did it three times in succession, and with the same result; the alligator knocking him over each time.