The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1910-01-23
THE EGYPTIAN CROCODILE.
Its Cunning and Wonderful Noise
IesRness-Tts Enemies

From the London l1mrs.
One of the reasons given by old writer's
for the crocodile being worshiped ln
Egypt was the somewhat cryptic one that
it laid three-score eggs and lived for
.three-score years" but from twenty to
thirty IS the common number OF eggs
found in a clutch In tho reptiles easy
code OF ethics, however, its parental
responsibilities end with the act of ovipo-
stiOu for having covered the eggs with
/ layer of sand it leaves the sun 20 do the
rest Cwhence doubtless Shakespeare's
your mud and the operation OF your
SUM- and leaves it also TO the ichneumon
to do its worst In some places it seems
that water tortOises, too, eat crocodiles'
eggs; but the IChueumOn is the real
desolator Of crocodile homes. scratching
up the nests and eating or breaking the
entire sitting AZ a meal CrOGOdiles'
eggs, however. are absurdly small. d
mother twenty feet long being content
with an egg no larger than that Of
goose, and the newly Matched young,
hardly more formidable than a common
newt. are preyed upon by birds, which a
little later the rapidly growing crocodile
would like nothing better than 10 get
within its reach, as well as doubtless by
many other things, including old croco-
dies themselves.
The real horror Of the members OF the
crocodile tribe lies in their usual noise
Iessness. They swim with great silence,
making scarcely even q ripple on the
water" says N du ChaiIlu. and the ter
ror Of the stealth of their approach is
we'll conveyed in Mr.. RudyaTd Kiplings
Ripple Song"
Wait. all wait" the ripple saith;
Maiden, wait for ! am Death
Sir Samuel Baker tells OF the cunning of
crocodies which advance at an animal
without any conceaIment and then. as If
in disgust at their failure, turn and swim
away, still in sight, only at last to sink
below the surface and returning without
ripple to betray them, rise Immediately
below the quarry, which has by this time
returned to drink in fancied security. BY
this trick he saw them again and again
catch birds which settled on branches
overhanging the water. The chief food of
most members of the family, and prob
ably the entire food of some, is fish; but
now that we know that a fun grown
rhinoceros can be pulled into the water
and killed by a crocodile we may believe
that few living things do not at one time
or another fall victims to them. Horses,
oxen. buffalOes, bOaTS, mules, and Camels"
Is list which one writer gives Of animals
which are known to have been eaten by
Crocodiles in Egypt. In South America
iagUars and tapirs have been seen being
seized, pulled into deep water and
drowned, while as for man, consider the
Mugger of Mugger Ghaut In Mr.. Kiplng's
grewsome tale. THE Undertakers."
According TO old writers the ichneumon,
besides eating crocodiIes' eggs, would run
into the full grown animals open mouth
and so down its throat. whence. after
reveling for a while amid the leviathan's
vitals, it ate its way out of the dead car
cass VIGOROUSLY 10 daylight The
hydra" it seems. did the same But the
dOlphin's method was the more artistic.
for being provided with a knife-edged
dorsaI fin it swan underneath 'the in
cased crocodiles" and sliced clean open
the soft, unprotected parts below.
In real life, however, the large cPoco-