Crocodile

krok'o-dil, a huge lizard-shaped reptilian, chiefly of Egypt and India. The crocodile is exceeded in size by but four animals. It is the largest of all animals hatched from an egg. It attains a length of from ten to twenty feet. Its enormous jaws are armed with sixty-eight formidable teeth. The largest teeth of the lower jaw fit into cavities in the upper jaw; and the largest teeth of the upper jaw fit into corresponding cavities of the lower jaw. The jaws close with a sort of lock which enables the crocodile to hang on to its prey with its entire weight. The back is covered with bony plates set in a thick, leathery skin. So far as they go the plates furnish an armor which it is difficult to pierce with an ordinary bullet or weapon, but the skin between the plates is vulnerable. The animal cannot turn quickly, but it has a long tail flattened sidewise with which it can strike terrific blows and knock its prey around in reach of its mouth. The crocodile hunts its food around the margins of rivers and ponds, keeping all but the upper part of its head under water. It sinks when alarmed and can stay under the water for an hour and a half at a time. It swims with the tail, not with the feet. The chief food of the crocodile is fish. Large prey is hidden in a water hole and later dragged ashore to be eaten. The eggs, thirty to sixty, somewhat smaller than those of a goose, are deposited in a low heap of muck on the hot sand, and left for the sun to hatch, though it is said that the female defends the nest and scratches off the sand to liberate her young.

The crocodile of the Nile was held in reverence by the natives. Crocodile worship rose to such an extreme that sacred crocodile were kept in temples, adorned with jewelry, led in religious processions, and mummified when dead. The crocodiles of the Ganges were also protected by idolatrous ideas and grew exceedingly bold and dangerous. They infested the bathing places and acquired a shark's appetite for human victims.

The crocodile is distributed more widely than was supposed. In 1875 genuine crocodiles fourteen feet long were discovered in Florida. The scales are ridged more sharply and the snout is narrower than in the case of the alligator. Their habits and haunts are much the same. In addition to two gavials of northern India and Borneo, and five caimans of the Amazon region, there are no less than ten genuine crocodiles. They are found in Florida, in Central America, in Cuba, in the Orinoco, in the Niger, in the Congo, in the Nile, in Australia, in Malaysia, and in the Ganges respectively.

The crocodile of the menageries is caught napping on the sand. A dozen half naked Africans armed with clubs fight him away from the water's edge until a lucky blow half stuns him. Then they pile on, bind his jaws together with a rope, tie his feet to his body, and lash him to a stiff pole. The trapper then floats him down the river and puts him into a cage ready for shipment--probably to Hamburg. See Alligator; Gavial