Though hideous and repulsive in appearance, these reptiles nevertheless fulfil a most useful office as scavengers. In the neighbourhood of large towns on the banks of the Ganges, hundreds of dead bodies are daily cast into the holy river by the Hindus; and in a tropical climate like India, were it not for crocodiles, turtles, and vultures assembling and devouring the corpses, speedily some dreadful plague would break out and spread death around.
Judging from the accounts of travellers, the crocodiles inhabiting the African continent must be far more dangerous than their confrères of Asia; for though we sometimes hear of muggers taking to man-eating, especially in Lower Bengal and parts of Assam, yet such practices are not the rule, as is generally supposed.
I have, however, seen patches of water near the foot of ghats or flights of steps fenced round with a close and strong hedge of bamboo stakes, driven firmly into the river-bed, for the purpose of protecting bathers or women drawing water from the assaults of man-eating crocodiles; and it is a dangerous practice at all times to bathe in pools frequented by such monsters. Cows, horses, sheep, goats, and dogs, besides the numerous wild inhabitants of the jungle, all form a prey of the mugger. The cunning animal, well acquainted with some spot where, towards sunset, flocks and herds, after the heat of the day has passed, are in the habit of drinking, there lies in wait concealed amid the sedge bordering the margin. Presently some unlucky victim in the shape of a poor bullock parched with thirst, comes hurrying down the bank and eagerly approaches the water; but hardly has its mouth reached the surface, when the blood-thirsty crocodile seizes it by the nose; and if once successful in securing a firm grip, the chances are, that unless the herdsman is at hand to render assistance, the unfortunate bullock, in spite of struggling desperately to free itself, is soon dragged down on to its knees, and later beneath the surface of the pool.
It has been asserted that tigers ere now have been seized, and after a hard fight, overpowered by the crocodile. Possibly this may occasionally happen; but I imagine such an occurrence to be extremely rare; and my impression is, that such redoubtable champions, each capable of inflicting severe punishment on his opponent, would avoid rather than risk coming to blows.
It is generally imagined that the plated coat of mail covering the crocodile's body renders the animal invulnerable to bullets. Such may have been the case in the days of brown-bess; but a spinning conical ball fired from a Martini-Henry or other grooved weapon of the present day, will not only readily pierce, but even pass completely through the body of the largest crocodile.
It is the extraordinary tenacity of life with which all the lizard family are endowed, that has in a great measure given rise to this notion of their invulnerability; for unless shot through the head, neck, heart, or such-like vital part, the crocodile, even when desperately wounded by a bullet through the body, will almost invariably gain the water, only shortly afterwards to sink dead to the bottom, to be devoured by some of its cannibal relations.
Near a station where I happened to be quartered for many years in Central India, there was a large lake where crocodiles were known yearly to breed. After some trouble, I procured two mugger's eggs from some fishermen who frequented the spot. They were of an oval shape, dirty white colour and rough surface. The female crocodile about the month of May, having scraped a hole with her feet in the sand or mud of some dry island, deposits her eggs therein, and carefully covers them up, leaving the heat of the sun to hatch out her progeny. Meanwhile she hovers about the spot, till at length the thin layer of sand covering the eggs upheaves, the young issue forth, and escorted by the mother, take to their natural element, the water.
J. H. B.