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And why should anyone be surprised at the community life of these when the most unsociable and brutal of all creatures bred in river, lake, or sea, the crocodile, shows himself marvellously proficient at partnership and goodwill in his dealings with the Egyptian plover?See Herodotus, ii. 68; Thompson on Aristotle, Historia Animal. ix. 6 (612 a 20); Glossary of Greek Birds, p. 287. Some authorities such as Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 90 and Oppian, Cyn. iii. 415 ff., state that the ichneumon attacks the crocodile while its mouth is open for the plover’s operations. Cf. Boulenger, Animal Mysteries, p. 104, for a modern factual account (see also his World Natural History, p. 146). The plover is a bird of the swamps and river banks and it guards the crocodile, not supplying its own food, but as a boarder making a meal of the crocodile’s scraps. Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. iii. 11; xii. 15; [Aristotle], Mir. Ausc. 7. Now when it perceives that, during the crocodile’s sleep, the ichneumon Cf. 966 d supra. is planning to attack it, smearing itself with mud like an athlete dusting himself for the fray, the bird awakes the crocodile by crying and pecking at it. And the crocodile becomes so gentle with it that it will open its mouth and let it in and is pleased that the bird quietly pecks out, with its bill, bits of flesh which are caught in the teeth and cleans them up. When it is now satisfied and wants to close its mouth, it tilts its snout upward as an indication of its desire and does not let it down until the plover, at once perceiving the intention, flies out.
