How Crocodiles are Trained

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 300, 10 March 1928, Page 26

How Crocodiles are Trained

There is no means of completely training crocodiles. The only way they can be made tractable is by constantly w'orking with them. Even then they will forget one in a very short while. For instance, once I have set my animals at libertyin their enclosure at home it would be very dangerous for me to approach them after they had been basking for a while in the sun, writes Captain Wall in “The Daily Mail.” It is only when their skins begin to crack with heat and they are forced to retire to more sheltered spots that they become at all amenable. If you are attacked by a crocodile the most effective defence is to hit the animal sharply on the nose, where it is extremely sensitive. A crocodile will often consume 501 b

of meat at one meal, although it is able to go without food for two or three months. Its diet usually includes the lungs and livers of horses and cattle, and sometimes fish. Being cannibals by nature, crocodiles will also consume their smaller fry.

Crocodiles breed in the Northern hemisphere during June and July. The female lays roughly from 50 to 60 comparatively small white eggs at the rate of one a minute. After the eggs have been laid the mother buries them under a slight layer of sand and foliage and leaves them there to incubate.

Crocodiles sometimes live to a very great age. There is a crocodile still living on a farm in the Southern States of America which is reputed to be over 800 years old.

BHE cost or producing dia nionds in South Africa is £2 10s a carat. So says a recent report made to its stockholders by the diamond •Syndicate, which controls the entire* supply. A cut diamond of one carat, bought at a jeweller's shop, costs £6O to £IOO, according to quality. The price, however, ascends in a sort ot geometrical progression with increase in size, so that a fairly large stone is worth a fortune. The South African mines controlled by the syndicate yield 96 per cent, of ail the diamonds produced in the world. In effect, it is a monopoly. If they put on the market all the diamonds they are able to produce the Stones would be comparatively cheap. But the price is kept high by limiting the output and the number permitted to be sold, says a writer in “Popular Mechanics.” The first diamond discovery, purely accidental, owed its occurrence to a child. In 1867, an Irishman, John O’Reilly, on a hunting trip south of the Orange River stopped for a night at the house of a Boer named lan Neikirk. The Boer’s little daughter was playing with some bright pebbles on the floor, and O’Reilly asked if he might have one of them. He picked out the biggest one, which he afterward sold at Capetown for £2OO, a small fraction of its real value. Two years later, a Dutch trader in that region learned that a certain Kafir witch-doctor had in his possession what was supposed to be a magnificent diamond of great size. He sought to purchase the stone, offering a span of oxen for it, but the dealer in magic and spells valued it highly as a charm of special potency and refused to sell. The trader added to his offer his tent, wagon and appurtenances, and finally, stripped of all his belongings save gun and ammunition, he departed with the gem. It weighed 83| carats, and eventually passed into the hands of the Earl of Dudley, who paid £25,000 for it. This diamond is known as the “Star of South Africa.” In June, 1893, a Kafir labourer in a diamond mine at Jagersfontein, loading a cart with blue ground which had undergone the weathering process, espied a huge diamond, and managed to secrete it on person. Apparently it was not his intention to steal it, for, later on, he handed it over to the superintendent, and was rewarded with a gift of £l5O in cash and a horse and saddle. This was the famous Jagersfontein “Excelsior” diamond, an irregular crystal which looked like the brokenoff end of an icicle. It was pure white, and weighed seven and a-half ounces. Near its centre was a black spot, and, to get rid of this defect, the stone was chopped in two. From the larger piece was cut the “Jubilee” diamond, presented to Queen Victoria on the 50th anniversary of her accession to the throne. It was of 239 carats, 1 5-Bin long, 1 3-Bin broad, and lin in depth. The lesser fragment was split into ten pieces, the three largest yielding gems—a “pear,” a “drop,” and a “marquise”—weighing 158, 147 and 130 carats, respectively. The idea of chopping up a diamond was entirely new, a thing previously unheard of. But something much more remarkable in that line was destined before long to follow, in connection with a stone so gigantic that its weight was reckoned in terms of pounds! That stone was the “Cuilinan,” by far the largest diamond ever known, which came from the Premier mine, in the Transvaal. The manager of the mine, Fred. Wells, was strolling idly about when he caught sight of a great white stone lying in the blue ground which was spread over a wide area to weather. It was 41in long, 2Jin broad, and l|iu thick; it resembled a piece of very transparent glittering ice, and weighed 19 ounces. It was too large to be marketable. According to the rule for reckoning value in relation to size, it was worth about £9,000,000. The problem of its disposal was solved by presenting it to King Edward VII. on his 66th birthday, as a gift from the South African Government. The principal stone, when cut, was a pear-shaped drop-brilliant of 5164 carats, valued at £500,000. From the next biggest piece was obtained a square brilliant of 310 carats, itself much larger than any cut diamond previously in existence, and weighing 71 carats more than the “Jubilee.” Other fragments yielded six very big gems and 16 smaller ones.