Like many other of the lower animals, the crocodile, when surprised, endeavours to save himself by feigning death. Sir Emerson Tennent relates an amusing anecdote of one that was found sleeping several hundred yards from the water. ‘The terror of the poor wretch was extreme when he awoke and found himself discovered and completely surrounded. He was a hideous creature, and evidently of prodigious strength, had he been in a condition to exert it; but consternation completely paralysed him. He started to his feet, and turned round in a circle, hissing and clacking his bony jaws, with his ugly green eye intently fixed upon us. On being struck, he lay perfectly quiet and apparently dead. Presently he looked round cunningly, and made a rush towards the water; but on a second blow he lay again motionless. We tried to rouse him, but without effect; pulled his tail, slapped his back, struck his hard scales, and teased him in every way, but all in vain: nothing would induce him to move, till, accidentally, my son, a boy of twelve years old, tickled him gently under the arm, and in an instant he drew it close to his side, and turned to avoid a repetition of the experiment. Again he was touched under the other arm, and the same emotion was exhibited, the great monster twisting about like an infant to avoid being tickled.’ [Illustration: HUMMING-BIRDS.] CHAPTER XXVII. TROPICAL BIRD LIFE. The Toucan--Its Quarrelsome Character--The Humming-birds--Their wide Range over the New World--Their Habits--Their Enemies-- Their Courage--The Cotingas--The Campanero--The Tangaras--The Manakins--The Cock of the Rock--The Troopials--The Baltimore-- The Pendulous Nests of the Cassiques--The Mocking-bird--Strange Voices of Tropical Birds--The Goat-Sucker’s Wail--The Organista-- The Cilgero--The Flamingos--The Scarlet Ibis--The Jabiru--The Roseate Spoon-bill--The Jacana--The Calao--The Sun-birds--The Melithreptes--The Argus--The Peacock--Tropical Waders of the Old World--The African Ibis--The Numidian Crane--Australian Birds-- The Lyre Bird--The Birds of Paradise--African Weaving-birds-- Social Grosbeak--The Baya--The Tailor-bird--The Honey Eaters--The Rock Warbler--The Dicæum--The Bower-birds--The Talegalla--Birds of Passage. Useful in many respects to man, no class of animals is more interesting or agreeable to him than that of the Birds, whether we consider the beauty of their plumage, the grace of their movements, the melody of their voice, or the instinct that regulates their migrations and prompts them to construct their nests; so that their study forms, without doubt, one of the most attractive departments in the whole range of natural history.