e body was bitten off at the waist,
and the lower portion was the prize of the ground shark.

For several days the soldiers were busily employed in fishing for this
monster, while the distracted mother sat in the burning sun, watching
in heart-broken eagerness, in the hope of recovering some trace of her
lost son. This, however, was not to be; the shark was never seen again.

There is as much difference in the characters of sharks as among other
animals or men. Some are timid and sluggish, moving as though too lazy
to seek their food; and there is little doubt that such would never
attack man. Others, on the contrary, dash through the water as a pike
would seize its prey, and refuse or fear nothing. There is likewise a
striking distinction in the habits of crocodiles; those that inhabit
rivers being far more destructive and fearless than those that infest
the tanks. The natives hold the former in great terror, while with the
latter they run risks which are sometimes fatal. I recollect a large
river in the southeast of Ceylon, which so abounds with ferocious
crocodiles that the natives would not enter the water in depths above
the knees, and even this they objected to, unless necessity compelled
them to cross the river. I was encamped on the banks for some little
time, and the natives took the trouble to warn me especially not to
enter; and, as proof of the danger, they showed me a spot where three
men had been devoured in the course of one year, all three of whom are
supposed to have ministered to the appetite of the same crocodile.

Few reptiles are more disgusting in appearance than these brutes; but,
nevertheless, their utility counterbalances their bad qualities, as
they cleanse the water from all impurities. So numerous are they that
their heads may be seen in fives and tens together, floating at the top
of the water like rough corks; and at about five P.M. they bask on the
shore close to the margin of the shore ready to scuttle in on the
shortest notice. They are then particularly on the alert, and it is a
most difficult thing to stalk them, so as to get near enough to make a
certain shot. This is not bad amusement when no other sport can be had.
Around the margin of a lake, in a large plain far in the distance, may
be seen a distinct line upon the short grass like the fallen trunk of a
tree. As there are no trees at hand, this must necessarily be a
crocodile. Seldom can the best hand at stalking then