THE PALESTINE CROCODILE.
(To THE EDITOR OP VIZ " SPICTATOR."1 Sin,—Under the above heading a correspondent tells ns in the Spectator of March 20th about the Nile crocodile. He is very much mistaken in his dates. Considerably before the dam at AswAn was projected a crocodile below the First Cataract was a rarity. The crocodile deposits its eggs on a convenient sandbank, the sun does the rest; but when steamboats began to run up and down the river the eggs deposited on the sand- banks were chilled by the wash from these boats and came to naught. The sportsman also accounted for the destruction of the noxious reptiles, but not of the eggs. As long ago as 1898 I was at Semna, some fifty miles south of the northern end of the Second Cataract. The natives who traded by selling the skins told me they had to go more and more to the south to find any crocodiles. There are many crocodiles to be seen basking on sandbanks when one has arrived at New Dongola and south of it. Do crocodiles travel to the sea ?—I am, Sir,
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