conformation. The fact is that the sexes are almost undistinguishable, except on
dissection, and therefore the natives class all that are caught as females. While
on this subject, it may be worth mentioning that at Port Weld there used to be a
tame crocodile which would come when called. The Malays fed it regularly, and
said it was not vicious, and would not do any harm. It was repeatedly seen by the
yearly visitants to Port Weld, or Sapetang, as the place was then called, and was
a fine big animal, with a bunch of seaweed growing on its head. Some one had it
called, and then fired at the poor thing; whether it was wounded or only
frightened is uncertain, but it never came again.”^287
The following notes upon the same subject were collected by me in Selangor:—
The female crocodile commonly builds her nest, with or without the aid of the
male, among the thorny clumps of lĕmpiei (or dĕmpiei) trees just above high-
water mark, using the fallen leaves to form the nest, and breaking up the twigs
with her mouth. The season for laying is said, in the north of the Peninsula, to
coincide with the time “when the rice-stalks swell with the grain,” i.e. the end of
the wet season.
The most prolific species of crocodile is reputed to be the buaya lubok, or Bight
crocodile (also called buaya rawang, or Marsh crocodile), which lays as many as
fifty or sixty eggs in a single nest. Other varieties, I may add, are the buaya
tĕmbaga (Copper crocodile), the buaya katak (Dwarf crocodile), which is, as its
name implies, “short and stout,” and the buaya hitam or bĕsi (Black or Iron
crocodile), which is reported to attain a larger size than any other variety. This
latter kind is often moss-grown, and is hence called buaya bĕrlumut (Mossy
crocodile). The largest specimen of this variety of which I have had any reliable
account is one which measured “four fathoms, less one hasta” (about 23 feet),
and which was caught in the time of Sultan Mahmat at Sungei Sembilang, near
Kuala Selangor, by one Nakhoda Kutib.
The buaya jolong-jolong, which has attracted attention owing to its reputed
identification with the gavial of Indian waters, and which is therefore no true
crocodile, is pointedly described by Malays as separating itself from the other
species.
Finally, there is the buaya gulong tĕnun (the “Crocodile that Rolls up the
Weft”?), which is not, however, the name of a separate variety, but is the name