[Illustration: CROCODILES AND ALLIGATORS.] CHAPTER XXVI. CROCODILES AND ALLIGATORS. Their Habits--The Gavial and the Tiger--Mode of Seizing their Prey-- Their Voice--Their Preference of Human Flesh--Alligator against Alligator--Wonderful Tenacity of Life--Tenderness of the Female Cayman for her Young--The Crocodile of the Nile--Its Longevity-- Enemies of the Crocodile--Torpidity of Crocodiles during the Dry Season--Their Awakening from their Lethargy with the First Rains-- ‘Tickling a Crocodile.’ There was a time, long before man appeared upon the scene, when huge Crocodiles swarmed in the rivers of England, and, for aught we know, basked on the very spot where now their grim representatives can hardly be said to adorn the grounds of Sydenham Palace. But the day when the ferocious, bone-harnessed Saurians lorded it in the European streams has passed, never to return; the diminished warmth of what are now the temperate regions of the globe having long since confined them to the large rivers and lagunes of the torrid zone. The scourge and terror of all that lives in the waters which they frequent, they may with full justice be called the very images of depravity, as perhaps no animals in existence bear in their countenance more decided marks of cruelty and malice. The depressed head, so significant of a low cerebral development; the vast maw, garnished with formidable rows of conical teeth, entirely made for snatch and swallow; the elongated mud-coloured body, with its long lizard-like tail, resting on short legs, stamp them with a peculiar frightfulness, and proclaim the baseness of their instincts. The short-snouted, broad-headed Alligators, or Caymen, belong to the New World; the Gavials, distinguished by their straight, long, and narrow jaw, are exclusively Indian; while the oblong-headed Crocodiles are not only found in Africa and Asia, but likewise infest the swamps and rivers of America. All these animals, however, though different in form and name, have everywhere similar habits and manners; so that, in general, what is remarked of the one may be applied to the others. [Illustration: ALLIGATOR.] [Illustration: CAPYBARA.] Formed for an aquatic life they are very active in the water, darting along with great rapidity by means of their strong muscular tail and their webbed hind feet. They sometimes bask in the sunbeams on the banks of the rivers, but oftener float on the surface, where, concealing their head and feet, they appear like the rough trunk of a tree, both in shape and colour, and thus are enabled the more easily to deceive and catch their prey.