The polar and tropical worlds : a description of man and nature in the polar and equatorial regions of the globe . suddenly rising within striking distance will whir]round his tail with lightning rapidity, and generally bring the victim into his was fishing on one occasion upon the Bayou Sara, a wild, desolate stream, and onthe opposite bank I noticed a tall crane which for half an hour had been standinoperfectly still and half-leg deep in the water, either refijcting upon the mutability ofornithological affairs, or watching for minnows. My attention was also arrested by theapparent phe
The polar and tropical worlds : a description of man and nature in the polar and equatorial regions of the globe . suddenly rising within striking distance will whir]round his tail with lightning rapidity, and generally bring the victim into his was fishing on one occasion upon the Bayou Sara, a wild, desolate stream, and onthe opposite bank I noticed a tall crane which for half an hour had been standinoperfectly still and half-leg deep in the water, either refijcting upon the mutability ofornithological affairs, or watching for minnows. My attention was also arrested by theapparent phenomenon of a limb of a tree taking upon itself motion, and cautiouslymoving down the bank of the bayou toward the crane. The alligator—for such itwas—by a strange sidelong motion, gradually reached his prey, but seemed in nohaste to seize it. For a long while he appeared to be sleeping on the bank; whensuddenly be contracted himself into a half circle around the bird, opened his jaws,and drove the bird into them with a terrible certainty, and then with a nimble springdisappeared beneath the muddy ALLIGATOR AND CRANE. The statement of Orton, that alligators rarely attack man, is hardly borne out byother authorities. Indeed it is said that as in the case of the lion, when they haveonce tasted human flesh they prefer it to that of any other animal. During Hum-boldts stay at Angostura, a monstrous Cayman seized an Indian by the leg while hewas busy pushing his boat ashore in a shallow lagunc, and immediately dragged himdown into the deeper water. The cries of the unfortunate victim soon attracted alarge number of spectators, who witnessed the astonishing courage with which he * Harpers Magazine, December, 1854. 638 THE TROPICAL WORLD. searched in his pocket for a knife. Not finding the weapon, he then seized the reptileby the head, and pressed his fingers into its eyes—a method which saved MungoParks negro from a similar fate. In this case, however, the monster did
Size: 1935px × 1291px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, books, booksubjectnaturalhistory
