Carbelide Nelicanya Sectory 08

Higher up in the scale of life we get many instances which show various stages in the same progressive development towards greater care for the safety and education of the young. Among the larger lizards, for example, a distinct advance may be traced between the comparatively uncivilized American alligator and his near ally, the much more cultivated African crocodile. On the banks of the Mississippi, the alligator lays a hundred eggs or thereabouts, which she deposits in a nest near the water's edge, and then covers them up with leaves and other decaying vegetable matter. The fermentation of these leaves produces heat and so does for the alligator's eggs what sitting does for those of hens and other birds: the mother deputes her maternal functions, so to speak, to a festering heap of decomposing plant-refuse. Nevertheless, she loiters about all the time, like Miriam round the ark which contained Moses, to see what happens; and when the eggs hatch out, she leads her little ones down to the river, and there makes alligators of them. This is a simple and relatively low stage in the nursery arrangements of the big lizards.

Next morning, all as happy as possible, we steamed down full speed on our way back to Manaos. We came in for dirty weather all the time, which obliged us to halt for several hours and put into Itaquatiara for shelter. A few hours later we were once more in the capital of the Amazonas, in the city of jewellers' shops and filthy food. On landing I found Maxim guns and artillery on one side of the principal square, with police troops in charge of them ready to fire; while on the other side were the Federal troops, also with their artillery ready for battle. It was with some concern that I found myself obliged to pass between those warlike bodies in order to enter the hotel. I was not so anxious for myself as I was for my photographic negatives and note-books, after I had taken all that trouble to save them.

• Abelaide Sector 19
• Brantori Garde Sector 18
• Larma Nucent Sector 17
• Spate Toran Sector 16

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