Note 55 — THE PRIMEVAL FORESTS OF CENTRAL AFRICA.
Margaret R. Thomson translation
[Note 55] p. 227.—Crocodile Bird.
This is usually regarded as Pluvianus or Hyas ægyptius—one of the “plovers” in the wide sense. Professor Newton observes, however, in a note to the article “Plover” in his Dictionary of Birds that there is not perfect unanimity on the matter, as some have supposed that the “crocodile bird” was a lapwing—Hoplopterus spinosus. But the elder Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Brehm, who both saw the bird enter the reptile’s mouth, regarded it as Pluvianus ægyptius.
Dr. Leith Adams notes (1870) that the crocodile is now rarely seen below Beni Hassan, and is evidently receding everywhere below the second cataract. Both Herodotus and Strabo speak of its domestication, and it is tamed at the present day by certain religious sects in India. On the lower Nile it is shy and difficult even to shoot.
“A sail, or the smoke and noise of a steamboat, suffice to warn the crocodiles basking on the sand-banks, or their common companions, the black-headed and spur-winged plovers (Pluvianus ægyptius and Hoplopterus spinosus), which are frequently seen perched on their backs, and always prepared to give timely warning of approaching danger, just as the Father of History noticed them 2300 years ago, and, strange to say, his well-known story is current among the modern Egyptians, who, as usual, have put a tail to the narrative. They say, that in addition to its office of leech-catcher to the crocodile, it occasionally does happen that the zic-zac—so called from its note of alarm—in searching for the leeches, finds its way into the reptile’s mouth when the latter is basking on a sand-bank, where it lies generally with the jaws wide apart. Now this is possible and likely enough, but the captain of our boat added, that occasionally the crocodile falls asleep, when the jaws suddenly fall, and the zic-zac is shut up in the mouth, when it immediately prods the crocodile with its horny spurs, as if refreshing the memory of his reptilian majesty, who opens his jaws and sets his favourite leech-catcher at liberty” (Leith Adams).