In the Reptile-house of the Zoological Gardens, I have often stood to look at the largest kind of lizard; for the Crocodile, that huge animal with its green glaring eyes, and its armour made of bony plates with sharp ridges, is but an overgrown lizard. If you wish to form some idea of what it is most like, you can look at one of the beautiful little newts which live in some pond or ditch near you, and fancy it magnified many, many times, and then you will not have a bad notion of the crocodile, the lizard of Africa, or of the Cayman or Alligator, the great lizard of the New World. [Illustration: CROCODILE.] The word crocodile means a creature which dislikes saffron; so it would be of no use, I suppose, for us to offer that lazy-looking animal floating in his tank, looking as lifeless as the trunk of a tree, with his nose and a little ridge of his mail-clad back alone appearing above the water, a saffron bun--to say nothing of his being a creature whose appearance does not seem to invite us to come to close quarters, or to hold any communication with him. But we have little idea of what these enormous reptiles are really like, when we see them so far away from their native haunts. It is thought by some that the "_leviathan_," spoken of in the book of Job, whose "teeth are terrible round about," is the crocodile; for its mouth is larger than that of any other animal, and is armed with very sharp teeth. Dr. Smith tells [Footnote: "Nile," _Dictionary of the Bible_, p. 621.] us that crocodiles were once so plentiful in the East, that the great river of Egypt swarmed with them, and the Egyptians, who made almost everything into a god, worshipped them and made mummies of them, as they did of birds, cats, and snakes. I have often thought that when the mother of Moses long ago laid that child who was "fair to God" in his bulrush cradle among the reeds by the river's bank, her heart must almost have failed her as she remembered the terrible crocodiles; but she had faith in God, and He suffered no wild beast to molest that little ark. The crocodile feeds upon fish, and any animals which he can catch, when they come to the banks of the Nile and other African rivers to drink. Though it is clumsy in its movements on land, it makes its way swiftly through the water by means of its tail; sometimes it opens its terrible jaws, gives a great yawn, and then shuts them again with a sound which is heard far away. Mr. Arnot, a missionary in the heart of Africa, tells us that the crocodiles in the great river Zambesi drag the game which they catch under water, and so drown them, and then hide them under the river's banks. He says, "I used to watch these animals come up with perhaps a quarter of an antelope, and by firing at their heads I compelled them to drop their supper, Which my men picked up from their boats." The crocodiles' eggs are about the size of goose-eggs, and are said to be good to eat.