This species was worshipped with divine honours and mummified after death by the ancient Egyptians.]
Among the salient characters of the CROCODILE, as the representative of its tribe, which specially adapt it for its aquatic habits, the long, powerful tail is strongly compressed and thus fitted for use as an organ of propulsion, and the feet are more or less webbed. The most striking of its structural adaptations is, however, associated with the formation of the creature's skull. The manner in which a crocodile or alligator contrives to breathe or to save itself from asphyxiation, when opening and shutting its mouth under water, as it may often be observed to do in the Regent's Park Menagerie, is a common source of wonderment to the onlooker. This seemingly difficult feat is compassed by virtue of the posterior nostrils, or breathing-passages, being set so far back in the skull, and being so completely cut off from the mouth-cavity by specially developed bones of the palate, that they have no intercommunication with the mouth. It is this mechanism which enables a crocodile to seize and hold an animal underneath the water between its open jaws until it is drowned. Special valves at the back of the mouth prevent any water running down the creature's throat, while it is able itself to breathe unrestrainedly by allowing just the tip of its elongated snout, with the anterior nostril-apertures, to remain above the water's surface. In many species a conspicuous knob-like bony excrescence is developed at the extremity of the snout, by which the nostril-openings are raised turret-wise above the surface of the water. The eyes also being usually elevated above the level of the creature's head, the crocodile is able to approach its floating or bank-side prey practically unperceived, its huge body, limbs, and even the head, with the exception of the nose and eyes, being totally submerged.
[Illustration: _Photo by W. P. Dando, F.Z.S._] [_Regent's Park._
A native of West Africa, remarkable for the extreme shortness and great breadth of its nozzle.]
[Illustration: _Photo by Norman B. Smith, Esq._
A man-eating individual. This particular animal has just been shot. The natives in the background give a good idea of its size--little less than 20 feet long.]