The crocodile of the Nile is one of the most celebrated of the eastern species. Among the ancient Egyptians it was a sacred animal, and to destroy it was a crime. The priests kept crocodiles in tanks in the temple grounds; they ornamented them with jewels and fed them with the choicest food. After death the bodies were carefully embalmed and buried with great ceremony, and it is not uncommon at this date to find crocodile mummies in their tombs. _Alligators Swallowing Stones._ The alligators on the banks of the Oronoko, previous to going in search of prey, swallow large stones, that they may acquire additional weight to aid them in diving and dragging their victims under water. Bolivar shot several with his rifle, and in all of them were found stones varying in weight according to the size of the animal. The largest killed was about seventeen feet in length, and had within him a stone which weighed sixty or seventy pounds. _Animals Forecasting Danger._ That animals forebode the approach of an earthquake is a fact which frequently has been demonstrated. When no sign announces to unthinking man the coming terror, these creatures indicate it by their agitation and their cries. Every animal, without exception, feels this singular presentiment, but it has been more particularly observed among the poultry in the barn-yard. Dogs howl distressingly, and great restlessness is shown by horses and oxen in the open country. Humboldt relates that, in the earthquakes so frequent in South America, oxen and other domesticated animals will stand with their legs placed wide apart, as if they hoped by that device to lessen the danger of being precipitated into a crevasse which might suddenly open under their feet. It is for this reason that men in the same regions are advised, on the occurrence of an earthquake, to extend their arms from their bodies in the shape of a cross. The precaution is one which tradition and experience have impressed on the inhabitants. _Singular Provision against Famine._ The synapta is a marine animal closely allied to the sea-cucumber. If one of them is preserved in sea-water for a short time, and subjected to a forced fast, a very strange thing will be observed. The animal, being unable to feed itself, successively detaches various parts of its body, which it amputates spontaneously. "It would appear," says M. Quatrefages, "that the animal, feeling that it had not sufficient food to support its whole body, is able successively to abridge its dimensions by suppressing the parts it would be most difficult to support, just as we should dismiss the most useless mouths from a besieged city." This singular mode of meeting a famine is employed by the synapta up to the last moment. In order to preserve life in the head, all the other parts of the body are sacrificed. _Looking for the Head of the Bed._