Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/179

Rh without fortifying his rash act with any proof whatever. Let me here inform this dealer in unsound Zoology, that my veracity is the only article upon which I feel that I have a positive right to plume myself, in the two small volumes which I have presented to the world. And now for the cayman; first, apologizing to the reader for this disagreeable though necessary prologue.

Those who have had no opportunity of examining the crocodile and cayman in the regions where they are found, may form a tolerably correct notion of them (making a due allowance for size) by an inspection of the little lizard which inhabits the warmer parts of Europe. And should they not have it in their power to travel out of England, they may still acquire a competent idea of these animals, by looking at the newt, which is common in most of our gardens: for, notwithstanding the frivolous objections which Swainson has offered to the contrary, I consider these monsters of tropical climates, neither more nor less than lizards of an extraordinary size, and in this the Spaniards agree with me;—for on their first arrival in the New World, seeing that the cayman was an over-grown lizard, both in form and habits, they called it "una lagarta," which is the Spanish name for a lizard.

The British, in course of time, having seized on the settlements formed by the Spaniards, soon became acquainted with the cayman, and on hearing the Spaniards exclaim "una lagarta" when this animal made its appearance, they, in their turn, called it an alligator; for so the two Spanish words, "una lagarta," sounded in the English ear. I got this information many years ago, from a periodical of which I remember not the name.

The little lizard which darts at a fly on the sunny banks along the roads of southern Europe, gives the spectator an excellent idea of the cayman in the act of taking its prey in the tropics; and whilst he views the pretty green creature turning sharply and quickly on the ground before him, he may see in imagination, the movements of the cayman on the banks of the Essequibo, after the dry season has set in.

I once fell in with a fry of young caymans on dry land near the river Essequibo. They were about a foot in length, and they twisted and turned in all directions with the agility of rabbits. One of them got entangled in the weeds. It fought fiercely before we succeeded in capturing it, and Daddy Quashi had it for his supper.

Crocodile is the eastern name, and cayman or alligator the western name for this huge lizard.

It is now high time to reject the many fabulous accounts of the cro-