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307 CROCODILES 307

his mouth wide open, facing the western breeze : at such times the trochilus goes into his mouth and de- vours the leeches. This benefits the crocodile, who is pleased, and takes care not to hurt the trochilus.

The crocodile is esteemed sacred by some of the Egyptians, by others he is treated as an enemy. Those who live near Thebes, and those who dwell around Lake Moeris, regard them with especial veneration. In each of these places they keep one crocodile in particular, who is taught to be tame and tractable. They adorn his ears with ear-rings of molten stone or gold, and put bracelets on his forepaws, giving him daily a set portion of bread, with a certain number of victims ; and, after having thus treated him with the greatest possible attention while alive, they embalm him when he dies and bury him in a sacred repository. The people of Elephantine, on the other hand, are so far from considering these animals as sacred that they even eat their flesh. In the Egyptian language they are not called crocodiles, but champsae. The name of crocodiles was given them by the lonians, who re- marked their resemblance to the lizards, which in Ionia live in the walls, and are called crocodiles.

The modes of catching the crocodile are many and various. I shall only describe the one which seems to me most worthy of mention. They bait a hook with a chine of pork and let the meat be carried out into the middle of the stream, while the hunter upon the bank holds a living pig, which he belabors. The crocodile hears its cries and, making for the sound, encounters the pork, which he instantly swallows do^vn. The men on the shore haul, and when they have got him to land, the first thing the hunter does is to plaster his eyes with mud. This once accom-