THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



No. 121. DECEMBER 1846. 



XXXVIII. — Note upon two Crania of Crocodiles in the Belfast 

 Museum*. By Hugh Falconer, M.D., F.B.S. &c. 



[With two Plates.] 



The existing Crocodiles are still but imperfectly defined, and 

 there is little agreement among systematic authors regarding the 

 number and characters of the species. This remark applies with 

 especial force to the Crocodiles of the Nile and of the Ganges. 

 Geoffroy assigns five species of true Crocodile to the Nile, all of 

 which are considered by Cuvier as varieties of a single species, 

 C. vulgaris. Dumeril and Bibron, in their f Erpetologie/ pub- 

 lished in 1836, follow the view taken by Cuvier, although it 

 would appear from a verbal communication of M. Bibron, that 

 their opinions have been considerably altered since. Mr. J. E. 

 Gray, in his 'Synoptical Catalogue/ published in 1844, admits 

 two species, C. vulgaris and C. marginatus. In like manner the 

 Crocodiles proper of the Ganges were restricted to a single spe- 

 cies by Cuvier, C. biporcatus, in which view also he is followed 

 by Dumeril and Bibron, although C. palustris of Lesson is in- 

 serted with doubt as a variety of C. vulgaris in their systematic 

 work ; but it would appear from the labels of the specimen in the 

 Paris museum that they now recognise it as a distinct species. 



* Communicated by Mr. W.Thompson, President of the Society to which 

 the museum belongs, with the following remarks : — " The crania which form 

 the subject of the present notice, were presented to the Natural History and 

 Philosophical Society of Belfast by Dr. M'Cormac of that town. They were 

 taken in the waters of the Sierra Leone river or its tributaries, and given to 

 that gentleman by his brother, Mr. John M'Cormac of Freetown, Sierra 

 Leone. My friend Dr. Falconer, on visiting the museum with me early in 

 1845, called my attention to the rarity of these crania. On leaving home 

 for London a few months afterwards, I took the specimens with me for the 

 purpose of comparison with others in the collections there, and the result is 

 sot forth in the paper. To the kindness of Mr. G rattan (Treasurer to the 

 Society already named) we are indebted for drawings of the specimens 

 made by means of a camera-lncida. These, for the sake of comparison with 

 the figures in Cuvier's ' Ossemens Fossiles,' have been drawn of the same 

 size." 



Ann. $ Mag. N. Hist. Vol. xviii. 2 D 



