Part 25 (1/2)
[Footnote 2: _Brit. Mus. Cat_. p. 143; KELAART'S Prod. Faun. Zeylan. p.
183.]
_Crocodile_.--The Portuguese in India, like the Spaniards in South America, affixed the name of _lagarto_ to the huge reptiles which infest the rivers and estuaries of both continents; and to the present day the Europeans in Ceylon apply the term _alligator_ to what are in reality _crocodiles_, which literally swarm in the still waters and tanks throughout the northern provinces, but rarely frequent rapid streams, and have never been found in the marshy elevations among the hills.
Their instincts in Ceylon present no variation from their habits in other countries. There would appear to be two well-distinguished species in the island, the _Allie Kimboola_[1], the Indian crocodile, which inhabits the rivers and estuaries throughout the low countries of the coasts, attaining the length of sixteen or eighteen feet, and which will a.s.sail man when pressed by hunger; and the Marsh crocodile[2], which lives exclusively in fresh water, frequenting the tanks in the northern and central provinces, and confining its attacks to the smaller animals: in length it seldom exceeds twelve or thirteen feet. Sportsmen complain that their dogs are constantly seized by both species; and water-fowl, when shot, frequently disappear before they can be secured by the fowler.[3] The Singhalese believe that the crocodile can only move swiftly on sand or smooth clay, its feet being too tender to tread firmly on hard or stony ground. In the dry season, when the watercourses begin to fail and the tanks become exhausted, the Marsh crocodiles are sometimes encountered wandering in search of water in the jungle; but generally, during the extreme drought, when unable to procure their ordinary food from the drying up of the watercourses, they bury themselves in the mud, and remain in a state of torpor till released by the recurrence of the rains.[4] At Arne-tivoe, in the eastern province, whilst riding across the parched bed of the tank, I was shown the recess, still bearing the form and impress of the crocodile, out of which the animal had been seen to emerge the day before. A story was also related to me of an officer attached to the department of the Surveyor-General, who, having pitched his tent in a similar position, had been disturbed during the night by feeling a movement of the earth below his bed, from which on the following day a crocodile emerged, making its appearance from beneath the matting.[5]
[Footnote 1: Crocodilus biporcatus. _Cuvier._]
[Footnote 2: Crocodilus pal.u.s.tris, _Less_.]
[Footnote 3: In Siam the flesh of the crocodile is sold for food in the markets and bazaars. ”Un jour je vis plus de cinquante crocodiles, pet.i.ts et grands, attaches aux colonnes de leurs maisons. Ils les vendent la chair comme on vendrait de la chair de porc, mais a bien meilleur marche.”--PALLEGOIX, _Siam_, vol. i. p. 174.]
[Footnote 4: HERODOTUS records the observations of the Egyptians that the crocodile of the Nile abstains from food during the four winter months.--_Euterpe_, lviii.]
[Footnote 5: HUMBOLDT relates a similar story as occurring at Calabazo, in Venezuela.--_Personal Narrative_, c. xvi.]
The species which inhabits the fresh water is essentially cowardly in its instincts, and hastens to conceal itself on the appearance of man. A gentleman (who told me the circ.u.mstance), when riding in the jungle, overtook a crocodile, evidently roaming in search of water. It fled to a shallow pool almost dried by the sun, and, thrusting its head into the mud till it covered up its eyes, it remained unmoved in profound confidence of perfect concealment. In 1833, during the progress of the Pearl Fishery, Sir Robert Wilmot Horton employed men to drag for crocodiles in a pond which was infested with them in the immediate vicinity of Aripo. The pool was about fifty yards in length, by ten or twelve wide, shallowing gradually to the edge, and not exceeding four or five feet in the deepest part. As the party approached the bund, from twenty to thirty reptiles, which had been basking in the sun, rose and fled to the water. A net, specially weighted so as to sink its lower edge to the bottom, was then stretched from bank to bank and swept to the further end of the pond, followed by a line of men with poles to drive the crocodiles forward: so complete was the arrangement, that no individual could evade the net, yet, to the astonishment of the Governor's party, not one was to be found when it was drawn on sh.o.r.e, and no means of escape was apparent or possible except descending into the mud at the bottom of the pond.[1]
[Footnote 1: A remarkable instance of the vitality of the common crocodile, _C. biporcatus_, was related to me by a gentleman at Galle: he had caught on a baited hook an unusually large one, which his coolies disembowelled, the aperture in the stomach being left expanded by a stick placed across it. On returning in the afternoon with a view to secure the head, they found that the creature had crawled for some distance, and made its escape into the water.]
TESTUDINATA. _Tortoise_,--Of the _testudinata_ the land tortoises are numerous, but present no remarkable features beyond the beautiful marking of the starred variety[1], which is common, in the north-western province around Putlam and Chilaw, and is distinguished by the bright yellow rays which diversify the deep black of its dorsal s.h.i.+eld. From one of these which was kept in my garden I took a number of flat ticks (_Ixodes_), which adhered to its fleshy neck in such a position as to baffle any attempt of the animal itself to remove them; but as they were exposed to constant danger of being crushed against the plastron during the protrusion and retraction of the head, each was covered with a h.o.r.n.y case almost as resistant as the carapace of the tortoise itself. Such an adaptation of structure is scarcely less striking than that of the parasites found on the spotted lizard of Berar by Dr. Hooker, each of which presented the distinct colour of the scale to which it adhered.[2]
[Footnote 1: Testudo stellata, _Schweig_.]
[Footnote 2: HOOKER'S _Himalayan Journals_, vol. i. p. 37.]
The marshes and pools of the interior are frequented by the terrapins[1], which the natives are in the habit of keeping alive in wells under the conviction that they clear them of impurities. The edible turtle[2] is found on all the coasts of the island, and sells for a few s.h.i.+llings or a few pence, according to its size and abundance at the moment. At certain seasons the turtle on the south-western coast of Ceylon is avoided as poisonous, and some lamentable instances are recorded of death which was ascribed to their use. At Pantura, to the south of Colombo, twenty-eight persons who had partaken of turtle in October, 1840, were seized with sickness immediately, after which coma succeeded, and eighteen died during the night. Those who survived said there was nothing unusual in the appearance of the flesh except that it was fatter than ordinary. Other similarly fatal occurrences have been attributed to turtle curry; but as they have never been proved to proceed exclusively from that source, there is room for believing that the poison may have been contained in some other ingredient. In the Gulf of Manaar turtle is frequently found of such a size as to measure between four and five feet in length; and on one occasion, in riding along the sea-sh.o.r.e north of Putlam, I saw a man in charge of some sheep, resting under the shade of a turtle sh.e.l.l, which he had erected on sticks to protect him from the sun--almost verifying the statement of aelian, that in the seas off Ceylon there are tortoises so large that several persons may find ample shelter beneath a single sh.e.l.l.[3]
[Footnote 1: _Emyda Ceylonensis_, GRAY, _Catalogue_, p. 64, tab. 29 a.; _Mag. Nat. Hist._ p. 265: 1856. Dr. KELAART, in his _Prodromus_ (p.
179), refers this to the common Indian species, _E. punctata_; but Dr.
Gray has shown it to be a distinct one. It is generally distributed in the lower parts of Ceylon, in lakes and tanks. It is put into wells to act the part of a scavenger. By the Singhalese it is named _Kiri-ibba_.]
[Footnote 2: Chelonia virgata, _Schweig_.]
[Footnote 3: ”Tiktontai de ara en taute te thalatte, kai chelonai megintai, onper oun ta elytra orophoi ginontai kai gar esti kai mentekaideka pechon en cheloneion, hos hypoikein ouk oligous, kai tous helious pyroiestatous apostegei, kai skian asmetois parechei.”--Lib.
xvi. c. 17. aelian copied this statement literatim from MEGASTHENES, _Indica Frag_. lix. 31; and may not Megasthenes have referred to some tradition connected with the gigantic fossilised species discovered on the Sewalik Hills, the remains of which are now in the Museum at the East India House?]
The hawksbill turtle[1], which supplies the tortoise-sh.e.l.l of commerce, was at former times taken in great numbers in the vicinity of Hambangtotte during the season when they came to deposit their eggs, and there is still a considerable trade in this article, which is manufactured into ornaments, boxes, and combs by the Moormen resident at Galle. If taken from the animal after death and decomposition, the colour of the sh.e.l.l becomes clouded and milky, and hence the cruel expedient is resorted to of seizing the turtles as they repair to the sh.o.r.e to deposit their eggs, and suspending them over fires till heat makes the plates on the dorsal s.h.i.+elds start from the bone of the carapace, after which the creature is permitted to escape to the water.[2] In ill.u.s.tration of the resistless influence of instinct at the period of breeding, it may be mentioned that the same tortoise is believed to return again and again to the same spot, notwithstanding that at each visit she had to undergo a repet.i.tion of this torture. In the year 1826, a hawksbill turtle was taken near Hambangtotte, which bore a ring attached to one of its fins that had been placed there by a Dutch officer thirty years before, with a view to establish the fact of these recurring visits to the same beach.[3]
[Footnote 1: Chelonia imbricata; _Linn_.]
[Footnote 2: At Celebes, whence the finest tortoise-sh.e.l.l is exported to China, the natives kill the turtle by blows on the head, and immerse the sh.e.l.l in boiling water to detach the plates. Dry heat is only resorted to by the unskilful, who frequently destroy the tortoise-sh.e.l.l in the operation.--_Journ. Indian Archipel._ vol. iii. p. 227, 1849.]
[Footnote 3: BENNETT'S _Ceylon_, ch. x.x.xiv.]
_Snakes_.--It is perhaps owing to the aversion excited by the ferocious expression and unusual action of serpents, combined with an instinctive dread of attack, that exaggerated ideas prevail both as to their numbers in Ceylon, and the danger to be apprehended from encountering them. The Singhalese profess to distinguish a great many kinds, of which not more than one half have as yet been scientifically identified; but so cautiously do serpents make their appearance, that the surprise of long residents is invariably expressed at the rarity with which they are to be seen; and from my own journeys, through the jungle, often of two to five hundred miles, I have frequently returned without seeing a single snake.[1] Davy, whose attention was carefully directed to the poisonous serpents of Ceylon[2], came to the conclusion that but _four_, out of twenty species examined by him, were venomous, and that of these only two (the _tic-polonga[3]_ and _cobra de capello_[4]) were capable of inflicting a wound likely to be fatal to man. The third is the _caraicilla_[5], a brown snake of about twelve inches in length; and for the fourth, of which only a few specimens have been, procured, the Singhalese have no name in their vernacular,--a proof that it is neither deadly nor abundant.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Bennett, who resided much in the south-east of the island, ascribes the rarity of serpents in the jungle to the abundance of the wild peafowl, whose partiality to snakes renders them the chief destroyers of these reptiles.]
[Footnote 2: See DAVY'S _Ceylon_, ch. xiv.]