it become that it had to be cut to pieces before he could be released.
It is recorded that when travelling in Egypt he obtained two crocodile's eggs with which he was highly delighted. He carried one of the eggs inside his shirt next his body, and in due course of time a young crocodile was hatched about the size of a large lizard. It was deposited in a bath-tub with a log for its perch and was fed upon the yolk of egg and tender meat. It grew rapidly, like the young pythons, and became too big for its tub. It developed a habit of travelling over the house and snapping at the heels of the inmates, and it became necessary to banish it to a tank in the garden. There it distinguished itself by eating the house cat and drowning a half-grown spotted deer, which it seized by the nose and held under water when it came to drink. After this it was condemned to death, and Jerdon's study of the habits of crocodiles came to an abrupt termination.
He spent hours in the open watching the birds, beasts, and reptiles in their natural haunts ; or he seated himself silent and motionless in a tree to learn the ways of the tree-frog and the lemur. On return from these expeditions his pockets were stuffed with specimens collected during the day. They were intended for the jar of ether, but frequently some of them escaped and might be seen wandering over his person.
Jerdon's name had been familiar to me from my childhood through my father's love of natural history. It was strange to come in touch with one of the very places where he had pursued his studies of king-crows, honey suckers, minivets, and babblers so common to the compounds of Madras. He must often have loitered by the Cooum watching the shy birds as they came down to the silvery shallows to drink and bathe. Birds as well as beasts suffer from thirst. Even the butterflies
