CHAPTER XVIIICROCODILES AND ALLIGATORS—DECEPTIVE APPEARANCES—AN UNFORTUNATE PECCARY—AN AMBUSH BY THE RIVER—LIFE AND DEATH STRUGGLES.
CROCODILES AND ALLIGATORS—DECEPTIVE APPEARANCES—AN UNFORTUNATE PECCARY—AN AMBUSH BY THE RIVER—LIFE AND DEATH STRUGGLES.
The most interesting thing I know about crocodiles and alligators—and this is a remark which applies to a good many animals—is the way in which they procure their food. This they do mostly, and by preference, in the water, but they have, also, a habit of lying in wait upon the mud of river-banks, until some animal approaches sufficiently near to be within their reach. Lying sunk in the mud, and of the colour of mud themselves, they may well be mistaken for a log or drifted tree-trunk, for they make no movement, and seem to be quite inanimate. Only their eye, if one happens to catch it, proclaims that they draw the breath of life. A wild pig, or some other animal fond of rooting in the mud, sees the long, black, shapeless object, and bestows upon it, at first, a scrutinising glance. “Looks like a log,” is probably its internal comment; “still, from time to time, I’ll keep my eye upon it.” It does so, but as the supposed log is always precisely in the same place and position, it becomes strengthened in its first conclusion, and soon ceases to think anything more about it. By this, in the course of grubbing and grazing—for there may be reed-beds,or other delectable patches, scattered about over the mud—our pig—one of a scattered herd—has got somewhat nearer to the long, dark object, and with occasional deviations and wanderings away into safety, continues, on the whole, to get nearer still. It is by mere chance that he does so. There is no need to, any other direction would do as well, but fate is upon him, he is the foredoomed one, the “one more unfortunate,” the one to “be taken” amidst the many to “be left”—some for another time. Looking up, suddenly, with the fresh-turned mud upon his nose, he is surprised to see the log right beside him, so near that he might jump on the top of it, were he so minded, and—and by the jaguars!—heisso minded. He will do it, he has run down logs before, he rather likes it; sometimes, too, by ripping up the bark one may get at something—that upon a log which he thought, not long ago, in his overwariness, might get at him. The recollection gives piquancy to the situation. He brings all four legs together, and rises in a light, elastic spring. In the very moment of doing so—a second or so before, perhaps, but the motion cannot be arrested now—he notices that a change has come over the supposed log. It has moved; nay, it is moving. One end of it, the longest, thinnest end, the tail end—oh, heavens!the tail—is gliding away in a curve, till now its tip almost touches the further side, not of a log, but of a gigantic alligator, whose head, with grinning jaws, is at the same time raised, and whose greeny, baleful eye, falling, like death, upon the deceived animal, seems to claim him for its own.
What can he do? All too late the fraud is revealed to him; no log, but a cruel saurian that has, all along, been waiting for its prey. What can he do now?—poor miserable, cheated pig, so happy but a moment before, and now—— He would stop himself if he could, but he is in mid-air and cannot check the impetus. On he must; but even so—even in mid-air thought may be active. Our pig’s brain is working. He has escaped from as great a danger. He remembers that time with the jaguar. Courage! even now. Come down on the alligator’s back, that he must do, but the instant he touches it he will spring lightly up again, and far away on the other side. Then—there is hope yet. One more spring, a race, and a scamper, and—— But the tail of the alligator is by this time bent round as tight as it will go—it has not taken long—and suddenly, like a bow when the arrow is loosed, it flies back, and then with a mighty swing comes round in the opposite direction. It meets the flying body of the pig, not directly, but with a tremendous sideway blow; there is a heavy, dull sound, a squeal, choked suddenly as for want of breath, and hurled obliquely from its original course, the luckless and now almost inanimate creature falls in a dead heap, some yards beyond the saurian’s head. Recovery from such a blow would be in any case doubtful, but the pig has no time to recover. With a sudden, swift rush the alligator is upon him, and seizing the body by the skin, which it holds puckered up between its front teeth, it shakes it furiously, as a terrier would a rat, and then half drags, half pushes it before it, as it crawls throughthe mud, to the water’s edge. The herd, alarmed by the sudden commotion, yet scarcely knowing what has happened, scatter at first, then rush all together and stand still, gazing from a safe distance at the suddenly revealed monster. Then, lowering their heads and whisking their tails in the air, they dash in wild gallop from the scene of the catastrophe.
The pig that has thus fallen a victim is most likely to have been the little South American peccary, for this habit of lying in wait upon the actual shore, and then striking suddenly with the tail, seems more developed in the American alligators than in the crocodiles of the Old World. The force of such a blow, when delivered by an alligator of any size, is tremendous, sufficient, says somebody, writing to one of the papers, to break the leg of an ox like a pipe-stem. According to this account, one of the fierce bulls, common in Florida, was attacked by an alligator, and his bellowings brought four other bulls to his assistance. Two, if I remember, had their fore or hind legs broken, but the other three succeeded, between them, in goring their enemy to death. It was an exciting story. I cut it out, and still keep it somewhere—I would quote from it if I knew where. As it is, it would take me a long time to find again, even if I knew in what paper to look for it, for though I think it was in theFieldI am not quite sure—it was several years ago. However, there was nothing in it which seemed to me at all impossible, or even unlikely. I am not quite sure, now, how the fight began. It would seem as if the bulls must have found thealligator some way from the water, or probably he would have succeeded in throwing himself into it. Perhaps the bulls attacked him first, or perhaps he served the first one in the same way that that other alligator did the pig.
The more usual plan, however, adopted by these great amphibious reptiles for seizing their prey, is to lie just under the bank, in the water, with only their eyes and the breathing-holes of their nostrils above it, so that they are quite invisible amidst the sedge or rushes, which commonly fringe the shore. If an animal—an ox for instance—comes down to drink where they lie—and they are clever enough to select a good drinking-place—they spring up and seize it by the muzzle, and then, joining their strength to their weight, and with some powerful backward strokes of the tail, in the water, they endeavour to overbalance it, and make it topple down the bank. Whether they are successful, or not, will depend on the size and strength of the animal thus seized, and still more on how much it may be taken at a disadvantage. A powerful ox or a buffalo—except, perhaps, the giraffe, the two largest animals that are at all likely to be attacked—will, often, drag its assailant up the bank, retreating backwards, and succeed, at last, in getting free from the terrible jaws. But should it stumble, or make a false step, which is very likely, the chances will be greatly against it. Its own weight adds, now, to the drag of the crocodile upon it; it slides or rolls down the incline, and, once in the water, all is soon over—it is dragged beneath the surface and drowned.
All the crocodile family are hatched from eggs, and although the parent is so large—perhaps twenty or thirty feet long—the eggs it lays are no larger than those of a goose. Consequently, the young crocodiles and alligators, in spite of their great mothers who try to look after them, are preyed upon and devoured by a great number of creatures, birds, fishes, various mammals, and even sometimes their own fathers. But when they become large and strong, there is only one wild animal I know of that cares to interfere with them, and that is the savage jaguar of South America. How large an alligator has to get before the jaguar is afraid to attack it, I do not know, but as Mr. Bates disturbed the creature at his meal on one, which, he thought, had left the water to lay its eggs, I suppose it was a fair size. Why Mr. Bates does not, himself, tell us how large it was, and why he says nothing more upon such an interesting subject—only just that he frightened the jaguar and found the remains of the alligator—I really don’t know; but it is an irritating way which travellers sometimes have. They generally go on to talk of something not nearly so interesting, and never turn back to what you would like to hear more about. This particular alligator had left the river-bank, and crawled up into the forest which was some distance away from it. This would have given the jaguar a great advantage, and perhaps it is only under such circumstances that even he would venture to attack an alligator of any size, since, if the latter could get to the water, all his efforts would be in vain.
When the jaguar attacks the alligator, he is said to spring on its back, and then tear, with all his might, at the root of its tail. This, possibly, is with the idea of paralysing that member, thus rendering it incapable of those mighty sweeps from side to side which are more, almost, to be feared than even the great armed jaws. The fear of both these weapons may deter the jaguar from clawing the throat of the saurian, for were it to be jerked off in the latter’s struggles, it would be more exposed to either than if it fell farther back. But why not disembowel the creature, since that could be done—or attempted—from almost equally far down the back? However, as far as I am aware, we have no real evidence as to themodus operandiemployed by the jaguar on these occasions, nor do I know anyone who has come nearer to witnessing such a scene than Mr. Bates, who, however, was just too late.
Besides alligators, the jaguar, like the common cat, is fond of a meal of fish, but unlike “the poor cat i’ the adage,” he is not afraid of wetting his paws to get it. Such, at least, is the story told by both natives and white men in South America, according to which he will climb out on the branch of a tree but just overhanging the waters of some forest river, and lie crouched there, with his paw suspended in air, till a fish swims by near the surface, when he dexterously jerks it up and catches it in his mouth. In Darwin’sJournal of Researchesa picture is given of a jaguar thus employed, and when one sees it, one, of course, thinks that there will be a good descriptionof it, with, perhaps, an anecdote or two. But the same disappointment is in store for us as in the case of the jaguar and alligator in Mr. Bates’ book, for the grand picture has hardly two lines of letterpress; which has vexed me so that I should call it unfair if I were quite sure Darwin had had nothing to do with it.