funerals so much trouble was taken were more sacred than the rest.[1] The crocodile, of which Herodotus gives a description, perhaps as fairly accurate as could be expected from an ordinary observer, was accounted sacred by some of the Egyptians; for instance, by the people about Thebes, and those about Lake Mœris. In each of these places a tame crocodile was kept, who wore ear-rings (or rather rings in the corresponding holes) of glass or gold, and bracelets on his fore-paws. Every day he had his ration of bread and meat, and when he died he was buried in a consecrated vault. But the people of Elephantinè, so far from canonising these animals, thought them tolerable eating.
Herodotus gives a native receipt for catching crocodiles. Bait a hook with a chine of pork, and let it float to about the middle of the stream. Let a confederate hold a living pig on the bank, and belabour him lustily. The crocodile hears the pig squeak, and, making for him, encounters the pork, which he swallows. When the men on shore have drawn him to land, plug his eyes with mud; after that, it is very easy to kill him. This latter item of the receipt has a strong affinity to an old precept about "putting salt on a bird's tail." A very similar mode of capture (with this exception) is practised by the natives now. The name "crocodiles," as the author observes, is Ionic Greek for "lizard;" the Egyptians themselves calling the animal "champsa."[2] He is somewhat mistaken in his
