14 REPTILIA. 



reaching lo the spine, and which appear to be produced by the ossi- 

 fication of the tendinous inscriptions of the recti muscles. 



Their lungs do not dip into the abdomen like those of other rep- 

 tiles, and some fleshy fibres, adhering to that part of the peritoneum 

 which covers the liver, give them the appearance of a diaphragm, 

 which, in conjunction with the division of their heart into three 

 chambers, where the blood from the lungs does not mingle so per- 

 fectly with that from the body as in other reptiles, appproximates 

 them somewhat nearer to the hot-blooded quadrupeds. 



The tympanum and pterygoid apophyses are fixed to the cranium 

 as in the Tortoises, Their eggs are as large and hard as those of a 

 Goosej and Crocodiles are considered, of all animals, those which 

 present the greatest difference in size. The females keep careful 

 watch over their eggs, and tenderly protect their young for some 

 months. They inhabit fresh water, are extremely ferocious and car- 

 nivorous, cannot swallow under water, but drown their prey, and 

 place it in some submerged crevice of a rock, where they allow it to 

 putrefy before they eat it.(l) 



The species, which are more numerous than they were thought to 

 be previous to my observations, are referable to three distinct sub- 

 genera. 



J. 

 Gavial, Cuv. -' 



The muzzle slender and very long; the teeth nearly equal; the 

 fourth ones below passing, when the jaws are closed, into notches, 

 and not into holes, in the upper one; the external edges of the hind 

 feet are notched, and the feet themselves palmated to the very ends 

 of the toes; two large holes in the bones of the cranium behind the 

 eyes may be felt through the skin. They have as yet been found in 

 only the eastern continent. The most common is, 



Lac. gangetica, Gm.; Gavial du Gange; Faujas, Hist, de la 

 Mont.' de St Pierre, pi. xlvi; Lacep. I, xv. A species which 

 attains a great size, and which, besides the length of its muzzle, 

 is remarkable for a stout cartilaginous prominence which encir- 

 cles its nostrils, and then inclines backwards.(2) 



(1) Crocodiles differ so much from Lizards that several authors have recently 

 thought it proper to form them into a separate order. They are the Louicata, 

 Merrem and Fitzinger; the Emtdosauria, Blainv. 



(2) This prominence is the foundation of Elian's remark (Hist. an. LXII, c. 

 41), that the Ganges produces Crocodiles which have a horn on the end of the 

 muzzle. See its figure and description by Geoff. St Hillaire, Mem. du Mus. XII, 

 p. 97. 



Add, the Petit Gavial (Croc, tenuirostris, Cuv.), Faujas, loc. cit. pi. xlviii, should 

 it prove to be a distinct species. 



N.B. The calcareous schist of Bavaria has produced a small fossil Gavial of a 



