Line of children: Crocodile, Crocodile lay across the river.
                  If not why not? What's your favourite colour?

"Crocodile": names a colour.

All children wearing that colour (underwear not included) run past the "crocodile", to form a line on the other side of the "river". "Crocodile doesn't chase them. Children not wearing the named colour are fair game. They try to out-run the "Crocodile". A child caught gets to be "Crocodile" next time around.

I have a small group of 13-year-old girls, attending our local school, who have parts in a play I wrote for them. My plays are always in the nature of musical folk-plays and I was explaing about the idea of meeting an enchanted Being on the road and having to answer vital questions and so forth. I gave them a modern example from a film I knew they'd have seen - and they told me about "Crocodile."
I got very excited because I'm working hard at trying to get them to understand "live theatre" as opposed to film. I also like to explain the idea of traditional songs, dances, games, stories, and plays. Here they'd given me a perfect example of oral tradition at work. -- a game they'd learned from other children in the playground when they were 5 year-olds. They hadn't been taught the game by teachers or parents - they were positive about that.

There are a few references to the game "Crocodile" on the net. Most seem to be from Australia and the UK. I've been working with school children, in a voluntary capacity, for many years and I have grandchildren. I've not heard this game before - and I usually notice such things. I realize that it's very similar to other games.

Do you know it, Friends? Is it played in the US?