when the large rivers are in high flood, the crocodile finds life rather hard. There is an abundance of water everywhere, and the game neither comes to the rivers to drink, nor does it any longer lie up in the luxuriant cool grass on the islets or in the marshy areas in the low-lying river-bed. It is true that putrid carcases come floating down the river; but they are often few and very far between, while, unless actually caught up in driftwood or held stationary in backwaters, they are more likely to be missed than captured. Women may also occasionally be seized when filling their water-pots, but, again, this is also a very precarious method of existence, besides which human beings also are not easy to obtain when the river is in flood. In consequence, the crocodiles begin to make their way up tributary streams and nullahs, which are dry at other seasons, but which during the monsoon lead them far inland to localities where they have a better chance of capturing game. The crocodile then takes up his abode in some favourable spot where he does not have to go hungry, and possibly later on discovers that the nullah he is living in is fast drying up. His next move is probably to betake himself to the nearest large pool for a while, as he will be very loth to leave such comfortable quarters. Instinct will probably tell him whether the pool is likely to dry up as well, and if this is the case, there are only two alternatives left for him. He can either return to the parent river, or he can take up his abode in a village tank. Perhaps it will be of interest to give my ideas on the origin of these "tanks." I am inclined to believe that in the Central Provinces without a tank there would be no village. Probably what happened in the first instance was, that a party of Gonds, wishing to found a village, selected an area in these rather flat jungles where there was a pronounced slope in the land, and where but little clearing of trees, bushes, and cover was required. Then they made a large embankment or "bund" at the bottom of the slope, planted trees and bushes on the bank to bind the earth together, and when the monsoon rains broke, a large pond or "tank" would be formed by the water flowing down the slope and being held up by the "bund." In many places these tanks are several acres in extent, and often many feet deep near the embankment; while in others, where there is but little slope of the ground, they remain very shallow. It is only in years of extreme drought that there is ever any likelihood of these miniature lakes drying up, so they make ideal homes for the crocodiles, provided that they behave themselves. It must be rather disconcerting for the timid villagers to wake up one morning and discover that one one of these horrid monsters has taken up its abode in their tank. They are not likely to take up permanent quarters in any of the shallow ones, but are not uncommonly found in quite tiny tanks, provided that they are of a suitable depth. It is on the rare occasions when these tanks dry up that the crocodile has to abandon his home and wend his way to the nearest river. I think there is little doubt that some especial instinct then gets to work, and apparently guides the clumsy beast unerringly to the water, even though it may be twenty or thirty miles away. Game come to drink at these artificial expanses of water all the year round, so the crocodile does not lack food. I think he displays considerable intelligence by not molesting the villagers, who wade right out into these tanks to draw water, and to wash themselves and their clothes. If he did, the Gonds would soon devise a means of getting rid of the pest, and cutting short his comfortable existence. It is quite strange to see several Gond women washing clothes far out in the water of a tank, while not many yards distant the heads and backs of several crocodiles are showing above the water. When I first saw such an occurrence I was astounded, but was quickly told that the villagers were never molested. At the same time, the Gonds would have been quite pleased if I could have rid them of the brutes; but the scaly monsters were far too cute, and realised that the white man with a gun was capable of mischief before ever a shot had been fired. On my approach they invariably submerged, and I never once saw any of them out on the dry land at the edge of the water. I am afraid he is not quite so forbearing in his dealings with human folk in the vicinity of the big rivers, as there the villagers are almost powerless to do him any harm, though they occasionally manage to put a bullet into him with their crude and illicit firearms. Under such circumstances he often has lapses, and helps himself to a plump village wench when she is filling her water-pots. On the other hand, I never heard of them molesting the fishermen when out in their rickety dug-outs either by day or night, and the slightest knock would suffice to upset one of these flimsy craft. The men often plunge into the water in mid-stream to set fish-traps, attend to lines or adjust nets, irrespective of the fact that a crocodile is moving about in the river in their near vicinity; but I never heard of a man being taken. In a certain length of the River Wainganga, which, towards the end of the dry season, was more in the nature of an extensive deep pool, I knew of several "mugger." I was rather anxious to shoot one, as previously I had only managed to secure his fish eating cousin in the Indus and its tributaries. I wasted several shots at one which used to haunt the river in the vicinity of a village, and where he had evidently become a nuisance, as the villagers begged me to kill him if possible. One afternoon I saw him lying in the water by a rock in mid-stream, which was about 200 yards away from my camp. By the time I had got my rifle-a 256 Mannlicher-out of my tent, the brute had disappeared; but two suspicious-looking objects above the water near the rock were quickly revealed as the knobs on his nose and above his eyes, when examined through field-glasses. I aimed just below the excrescence which protected his eyes and registered an accurate hit, which I afterwards discovered had penetrated the brain and blown out a piece of the skull nearly six inches long and a couple of inches in width. I knew he was severely wounded; but, at the same time, haste was essential, as muscular action might intervene and cause the creature to slip into deep water, and I might have to wait for days before he came to the surface again. If his spine had been touched he would have been absolutely powerless to make any movement. His head after my shot remained well out of the water, and a few Gonds and myself in dug-outs paddled out to the rock. On arrival there I found that the crocodile was lying on a ledge of rock just below the water, and was apparently dead. We soon fastened a rope round the body just in front of the hind legs, and a couple of dugouts proceeded to tow the carcase towards the shore. Then the fun began, for directly my victim found himself in deep water, he apparently took on a new lease of life, and I had a grim struggle to prevent the brute getting away. I hung on to the rope desperately, with the saurian's tail partly in the dug-out, while all the time I could feel myself being slowly dragged out of the boat and nearer and nearer to the water. The paddlers worked like Trojans, but naturally the weight and struggles of the monster made their task all the more difficult, and I really began to think that we would never reach the shore. I am unlikely ever to pull in a more strange tug-of-war, and would not care to repeat the performance. As it was, I just managed to last out until we arrived at the bank, where plenty of willing hands seized the rope and pulled the brute ashore. Once on land he was quite helpless, and a bullet at close quarters, fired into his side so as not to damage the valuable skin on the belly, finished him off immediately. This creature measured eleven feet, and when cut open was found to contain a freshlykilled jungle sow in six piecesthe head, forequarters, and rest of body,-several old village-made bullets, which must have been fired into him on the pleasure of eating great lumps out of it. Succulent morsels once torn off a carcase are, if possible, swallowed whole; but if they happen to be too large, they have to be torn into still smaller pieces, as the crocodile's teeth are not at all strong, though the weight of the jaws behind them will often enable the brute to snap through the bones of fairly large limbs. various occasions, and the order to hold it under water anklets of some unfortunate until drowned, rather than for female. This freshly killed pig found in his stomach rather goes against the theory of the crocodile keeping his meat till very savoury, especially as at that season game was plentiful near the river and should have been easily obtainable, so the "mugger ought not to have been hungry. Another fact, probably not widely known, is that this amphibian usually tears his victims limb from limb, and does not bite them into pieces, as is generally believed. When his jaws close on a luckless victim, it is for the purpose of preventing its escape and in Although a mugger may keep to a certain locality for long periods, these animals are great travellers, and often move very considerable distances along the rivers they haunt. So far I have been writing entirely from experience of crocodiles gained in the rivers and tanks of the Central Provinces, where I have not found them to be very numerous. In other rivers, however, such as the Hooghly, they will simply swarm in certain localities. Huge specimens are frequently seen swimming about in the vicinity of the Kidderpore Docks at Calcutta, which illustrates how far these creatures will travel. Farther down the Hooghly they become very plentiful, until eventually in the Sundarbans they are exceedingly abundant. In this latter area they are all maneaters of the worst description, and are a regular scourge in II. the proximity of the villages situated on the outskirts of those marshy forests. I think I am correct in saying that a reward used to be given for all crocodiles killed in those regions, and I seem to have a recollection of a huge and very odoriferous monster being brought in one day in 1911 to the Judge's Court at Alipore, just behind the regimental lines where I was stationed, in order that the destroyers might claim the Government reward. On the Indus, near Dera Ismail Khan, there used to be a small colony of these brutes almost certain to be still in existence,-which infested an extensive backwater not very far from the North-Western Railway station of Bakkar. I often made arrangements to visit this place, but for some reason or other had to abandon the trip on every occasion. It would be interesting to know the history of this colony, no other "muggers" being found within many hundred miles of the place, and the main stream of the Indus being entirely unsuited to their habits. I have never heard any theories propounded as to how these brutes could have got there, and can offer no explanation myself. The intelligence of the crocodile is, I think, again demonstrated by the behaviour of certain specimens in the Tana River in East Africa. This river is full of crocodiles, and the natives, in order to safeguard themselves, adopt as a pet one of these monsters for each village. These adopted crocodiles are regularly fed by the villagers, and quickly become practically tame. They frequent the river near the place where the natives draw water, as they realise that it is to their advantage to molest no one themselves, and also to prevent other muggers" from doing damage to the human beings. sequently a village's pet crocodile drives away all intruders, and enables the people to live in safety, while in return for his services he lives a life of luxury and ease, and has no worries as to how he is to obtain his next meal. Though this story may sound quaint and even savour of the fan 66 Con tastic, it is nevertheless perfectly true, and the arrangement proves to be most efficacious. Possibly the queerest experience I ever had with one of these brutes happened one night when I was sitting up for a tiger by the River Wainganga. "Stripes" had killed a Nilghai in the early hours of the morning amongst the thick vegetation of some small islands in the bed of the river, which at that season-being at the end of the dry weather-was very low. The position of the "kill" was too exposed to allow "Stripes" to lie on it after dawn, by which time he had hardly begun his meal. I had heard the sound of the tragedy, as I had been sitting up for that particular tiger over a jungle-path which he frequently used, but which he avoided that night. Accordingly I had a "machan " constructed in a thick evergreen tree-incidentally the only possible position-directly above the "kill," and took up my position in it an hour before dusk. I saw the tiger come out of the jungle a few hundred yards away while it was still light, and descend into the river-bed, where he was eventually lost in the thick cover. From the marks of his "pugs," which I examined the next morning, he evidently approached through the scrub to within 150 yards of the dead Nilghai, and then a puff of wind, which was unfortunately eddying from all quarters, must |
