The spread of the Zebra mussel into the Great Lakes is a recent example of the introduction of an alien species into a new environment. Its introduction into North America is attributed to the dumping of fresh water contaminated with its larvae from a ship coming from Europe.

Some species of alien animals have been purposely introduced into North America, such as the sparrow and the starling, while some species, like the Norway rat, have made their way around the world uninvited.

Canada is populated by invaders, for it was not too long ago that ice sheets covered its land mass. Thus, the species which comprise Canadian fauna migrated northwards in the wake of the glacial lakes. If there are such animals as the Sasquatch or an Ogopogo, their ancestors probably came from habitats in the United States, where their brethren may yet be found. However, there are some invaders which pose even greater mystery.

The occasional individual may escape in a strange land from a menagerie. The shooting of a penguin at Portrush, Ireland, reported in the Coleraine Constitution of January 12^th, 1907, suggest a mascot's escape from a passing ship. The shooting of an Indian jackal in the county of Kent, England, reported in the London Times of March 2^nd and Drewry's Derby Mercury of March 15^th, 1905, was probably an escapee from a circus or private collection. Who would report the loss of such a dangerous animal in the south of England? The discovery of a living African lemur in the backyard of Dr. E.R. Mathers in Lincoln, Nebraska, as reported in the Lincoln State Journal of October 23^rd and 25^th, 1931, seems a wayward pet of extraordinary value, whose loss was never confessed. The presence of such individual strangers can be easily, if only unsatisfactorily, explained. There is no doubt as to their appearances, however, as each one was stuffed and preserved for display.

But an invasion that is more difficult to explain was discussed in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1866 and 1867: several crocodiles had been found alive in England.

The story was first related by George R. Wright, F.S.A., who saw one of the specimens stuffed and on display in a farm house tenanted by William Phillips. The animal was found in 1856 or 1857, on the same farm at Over-Norton, Oxfordshire. Mr. Phillips was walking in his farmyard when his attention was drawn to what looked like a dead lizard, about a foot in length, with a wound in its belly, lying in the gutter.

"Upon, however, taking it up, he soon discovered that the animal was not a lizard, and he immediately asked his laborers, who were close by, unstacking some faggots for the use of the house, if they knew anything about it. The answer was that they had killed it as it ran out of a stack of wood, I think the day before; and on Mr. Phillips expressing his regret at their having done so without bringing it to him alive, they replied they could easily get him another, as at the place where the wood was cut a few miles form the farm, near to Chipping-Norton Common, and not far from the village of Salford, at the `minny' pool -- which I presume is a shortened form of Minnow -- they saw them frequently in the water and on the land and often running up the trees."

Mr. Phillips offered his laborers a reward for another specimen but without any success, and he carefully skinned and stuffed the animal. Mr. Wright brought the stuffed animal to Dr. Vesalius Pettigraw in London. Dr. Pettigraw confirmed that it was indeed a crocodile as did the famous naturalist Frank Buckland, to whom it was shown. These men merely confirmed what had already been learned before, when the specimen was brought to the British Museum once before and its discovery announced in the British sports newspaper Field on August 23^rd, 1862.

Mr. Wright took the specimen to Prof. Richard Owen of the British Museum. Prof. Owen confirmed the animal was a crocodile and a very young one, but he would not accept that it had been found alive in England nor even that it could have escaped from a traveling menagerie. He insisted the animal had been caught in another country, preserved in alcohol, and placed in the gutter as a joke. Mr. Wright did not think this a reasonable explanation. Nor were other readers of the Gentleman's Magazine convinced by it.

Mr. C. Parr of Oxford wrote of an occurrence some 30 years before in a field on Primsdown Farm near Chipping-Norton. A woman recalled to him how she "in company with some other friends was pursued by an animal of the crocodile kind, which chased them across the field; they had some difficulty in escaping from it, but eventually one of the lads crushed his head with a large stone." The creature was only a foot in length, but they were afraid to touch it should it still be alive and able to bite. A few years later, another smaller creature of the same appearance was seen on the footpath from the pond into the field where the group had been chased.

John Henry Belfrage of Lincoln's Inn Fields twice wrote to the Gentleman's Magazine in 1867. On the first occasion, he mentioned seeing a stuffed alligator at the Welsh Harp Hotel in the Edgware Road (now part of Metropolitan London). The animal had been brought to England by an American prize fighter and was kept in a reservoir as a pet for six months before being killed by an unknown angler. Another acquaintance told him of an earlier discovery of a crocodile.

"About 40 years ago, a young crocodile was found in a drain by some laborers at Great Haywood, Staffordshire. Their attention was first attracted by a squealing noise which proceeded from a covered drain, and which they at first thought was made by a dog. One of the laborers went for a pickaxe and shovel and commenced to open the drain, when as soon as he had made a sufficient opening out popped the head of the crocodile, which frightened the fellow so awfully that he dropped his shovel and ran away, followed by the other laborers who were looking on. Not finding themselves pursued, however, they at length stopped and held a council of war, when one of the most daring undertook to go back and try to kill the unknown monster with the pickaxe. This he eventually accomplished, and as such a curiosity had never been seen before in the neighborhood it was sent to be stuffed, and was handed over, as I understand, to Lord Talbot, On Ingestre Hall, where I believe it is still preserved. It measured about three feet, or a little more, in length."

Prof. Owen was not consulted as to where some laborers would find a yard-long crocodile specimen preserved in spirits, but Mr. Belfrage's acquaintance thought it may have escaped "some homeward-bound vessel, and had found its way up the Trent and into the drain in which it was discovered."

How several crocodiles came to be found in the north of Oxfordshire and in Staffordshire over a number of years early in the last century remains unanswered, unless a small number of invaders had established a colony in Britain. The other possibility would seem more preposterous than Prof. Owen's explanation, that these strange crocodiles were not strangers to Britain at all and had lived there as native fauna. Perhaps, the last specimens of British dragons were killed by stick, stone, and pickaxe by commoners, and not by St. George.

"Strangers in a Strange Land" was first published in the Whig-Standard Magazine, 12 (no. 5; November 17, 1990): 24.

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