kind. Crocodiles are animals of this sort. They are only found in hot countries where, as a rule, food is abundant and primitive man has therefore no reason to kill them for the sake of their tough and unpalatable flesh. Hence it is a general rule among savages to spare crocodiles, or rather only to kill them in obedience to the law of blood feud, that is, as a retaliation for the slaughter of men by crocodiles. For example, the Dyaks of Borneo will not kill a crocodile unless a crocodile has first killed a man. “For why, say they, should they commit an act of aggression, when he and his kindred can so easily repay them? But should the alligator take a human life, revenge becomes a sacred duty of the living relatives, who will trap the man-eater in the spirit of an officer of justice pursuing a criminal. Others, even then, hang back, reluctant to embroil themselves in a quarrel which does not concern them. The man-eating alligator is supposed to be pursued by a righteous Nemesis; and whenever one is caught they have a profound conviction that it must be the guilty one, or his accomplice.”(345) So the natives of Madagascar never kill a crocodile “except in retaliation for one of their friends who has been destroyed by a crocodile. They believe that the wanton destruction of one of these reptiles will be followed by the loss of human life, in accordance with the principle of _lex talionis_.” The people who live near the lake Itasy in Madagascar make a yearly proclamation to the crocodiles, announcing that they will revenge the death of some of their friends by killing as many crocodiles in return and warning all well-disposed crocodiles to keep out of the way, as they have no quarrel with them, but only with their evil-minded relations who have taken human life.(346) The Foulahs of Senegambia respect crocodiles on similar grounds.(347) The Seminoles, Sioux, and Iowa Indians of North America spare the rattle-snake because they fear that the ghost of the dead rattle-snake would incite its kinsfolk to take vengeance.(348) No consideration will induce a Sumatran to catch or wound a tiger except in self-defence or immediately after the tiger has destroyed a friend or relation. When a European has set traps for tigers, the people of the neighbourhood have been known to go by night to the place and explain to the tiger that the traps are not set by them nor with their consent.(349)