COiNTRiBUTlONS 



TO THE NATURAi. HlSTOiil 



OF THE 



VLLIGATO 



Ambiguous between sea and land , 



The scaly Crocodile Milton. 



Tlie Fauna ot' even the most enlightened countries, seenis to labor 

 iinder the same evil which for ages retarded the progress of medicine, 

 namely, an undue bias in favor of artificial classifications and nosological 

 systems. The Crocodilian family affords a strong example of this 

 arbitrary and illusory method of creating orders, genera, subgenera, 

 species, and subspecies, in advance of exact physical data. The inte- 

 gumentary osseous plates, the feet, the claws, the toes, or the teeth, 

 cannot be assumed as the classific criteria, until these shall be examined 

 analytically and synthetically; an achievement which remains for the 

 future, as the sequel will show. 



That the Alligator is identical with the Crocodile, can scarcely admit 

 of a doubt. Even those naturalists who have labored most to establish 

 a difference, have admitted directly or indirectly, that there is none of a 

 radical character. As this animal is, nevertheless, modified to some 

 extent by climate, it may be advantageous to adopt names characteristic 

 of the same, or at least, of the locality where this great Saurian is 

 found — as the Nilotic Crocodile, {crocodilus Niloiicus), the Gangetic, 

 (c. Gangeticus), the Mississippi, (c. Mississippieiisis), and so on. This 

 topographical nomenclature will, for the present, leave the question of 

 scientific classification open, as it ought to be, until vague and contradic- 

 tory descriptions shall be replaced by exact observations. 



The aborigines of America, called the Alligator Cayman , the Spani- 

 ards, Lagarto or lizard; the English, by a corruption of the Spanish, a 

 Lagarto ; and finally Alligator. The Nilotic Crocodile appears to have 



