Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/181

Rh shell is rough, and of a dirty white colour. Probably it is quite white when first deposited.

This formidable animal being able to exist either in water or on the land, may be styled amphibious to the fullest extent of the word. Master Swainson, notwithstanding his "compassion for the poor animals," and his interested wish to make his readers believe that they are of a timid nature, would have found himself awkwardly situated had he been in my position when I attacked the cayman mentioned in the 'Wanderings;'—the Indians positively refusing to drag it out of the water, until I had placed myself betwixt them and danger.

I once saw a cayman in the Oronoque thirty feet in length, and another of the same size in the Essequibo. This animal is an inhabitant of the fresh waters, although occasionally he maybe found in the mouths of rivers where the water is salt; but when this occurs we may conclude to a certainty, that he has been carried down the descending flood against his will.

Whilst I was in Guiana a cayman was killed in the salt water of the Essequibo, just opposite to the island of Waakenham.

We formerly learned from our nursery books that animals of the crocodile family have skins hard enough to turn a musket-ball. This requires explanation. No part of the cayman's body is absolutely proof against a musket-ball. Let it be recollected, that in shooting at one of these reptiles, we stand invariably above it, so that the ball from our gun, after striking the animal obliquely, flies off and merely leaves a contusion.

Although the back is very hard, the sides are comparatively tender, and can be easily pierced through with an ordinary pen-knife. The tail is not near so hard as the back, and singular to tell, the tail of the smaller kind, about five feet in length, is much stronger than that of the larger species.

In a creek up the river Demerara, I could any day see an adult cayman of this smaller species. It had chosen for its place of abode, a kind of recess amongst the flooded trees bordering on the creek; and it was so awake to danger, that I could not get a shot at it. After trying various and unsuccessful schemes to capture it, I took a curial at last just large enough to hold two people. I squatted in the prow, and Daddy Quashi steered it without making any stir in the water. Having cocked my gun, and placed it against my shoulder in a position ready to fire, the curial was allowed to drift silently down the stream, when, just as we got opposite the place where the cayman was lurking, I pulled the trigger and shot it. The whole of the afternoon