Soon ten wee long-jaws came out and crept about in the sun. Mother crocodile fed her offspring with small birds, that she caught by lying in the river with her mouth wide open. The birds, seeing only the upper part of the great jaws, were easily fooled into mistaking them for an old tree trunk. Sometimes as many as fifty of them flew down to rest and gossip on the crocodile's teeth and cold tongue. Suddenly, when the clatter was loudest, the huge jaws came together with a mighty snap, crushing every little warbler. Then the cunning old mother fed her children with sweet titbits. In the course of five years one of the young brood had grown to a monstrous size, and his ugly temper made him the terror of all the others. One day, in a fit of anger, he bit his two sisters so badly that they died. Then the savage reptile disappeared and stayed away, none of the family knew where, for fifteen years. At the end of that time, he returned to find his mother dying, with her seven good sons about her, weeping bitter tears. But not a sign of pity did the returned wanderer show for his dying mother and her sorrowing children. He was now a monster more than a hundred feet in length, and it was no wonder that when the brothers--pygmies in comparison with him--saw him coming toward them they fled in terror to the river, leaving their helpless mother at the mercy of her wicked son. Toward evening the brothers crept to the bank to see what was going on and the furious giant, who was lying in wait for them caught five of the little fellows and killed them as if in mere love of slaughter. The two others saved their lives by hiding till dark, when they fled to a place of safety down the river. Not content with killing his brothers, the fiendish destroyer turned upon his mother, telling her that he had come back to avenge the insults heaped upon him when he was a little fellow; then with a vicious snap he bit off her tail, and she died at sundown. "What a terrible brother!" thought the two escaping crocodiles as they made their way farther from the scene of danger. But the truth of the whole matter was that the monstrous fellow was not really their brother at all! He was the great Leviathan from Asia. You see, after the old crocodile had laid her ten eggs in the hot sun to hatch, Mendacia, the mother of lies and injustice, exchanged a Leviathan egg for one of the crocodile eggs. So when the eggs were hatched, Mrs. Crocodile, without knowing it, had a stranger among her own children. Mendacia was jealous of the new nation across the waters, and had secretly followed the old crocodile, hoping to destroy the young republic through her terrible Leviathan. This monster was related to all the Leviathans that did so much damage to the children of Israel in the days of Moses. These beasts had always been murderers and man-eaters and Mendacia was the evil spirit that prompted all the wicked deeds.