Humboldt has
related the strange accident of a hovel having been erected over a
spot where a young crocodile lay buried in the hardened mud. He
adds, "The Indians often find enormous boas, which they call Uji,
or water serpents, in the same lethargic state. To reanimate them,
they must be irritated or wetted with water."
I will only mention one other animal, a zoophyte (I believe
Virgularia Patagonica), a kind of sea-pen. It consists of a thin,
straight, fleshy stem, with alternate rows of polypi on each side,
and surrounding an elastic stony axis, varying in length from eight
inches to two feet. The stem at one extremity is truncate, but at
the other is terminated by a vermiform fleshy appendage. The stony
axis which gives strength to the stem may be traced at this
extremity into a mere vessel filled with granular matter. At low
water hundreds of these zoophytes might be seen, projecting like
stubble, with the truncate end upwards, a few inches above the
surface of the muddy sand. When touched or pulled they suddenly
drew themselves in with force, so as nearly or quite to disappear.
By this action, the highly elastic axis must be bent at the lower
extremity, where it is naturally slightly curved; and I imagine it
is by this elasticity alone that the zoophyte is enabled to rise
again through the mud.
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