got its name from two Greek words signifying saffron and fear, literally, 

 saffron-fearer. Hence the Egyptians placed saffron near their bee-hives 

 to drive off the Crocodile. "The sovereign power of saffron," says 

 Fuller, "is plainly proved by the antipathy of Crocodiles thereunto." 



In this paper it is not intended to give the anatomy, physiology, and 

 habits of the Alligator in systematic detail, but to point out some impor- 

 tant facts in its history, freed from the trammels of artificial classification, 

 and to correct certain errors, which, for several thousand years, have 

 been accumulating, until the herpetological account of this saurian has, 

 at length, become as fabulous as that of the Griffon itself. 



Men who have but one idea — be that calomel, quinine, or venesec- 

 tion, and who, under the pretence of being practical, reject every other 

 inquiry as " stale, flat and unprofitable," will, no doubt, think that croco- 

 dilian investigations are unworthy of their attention. It were easy to 

 show that comparative anatomy, physiology, and pathology, afford an 

 inexhaustible mine of useful know ledge, especially to the practical phy- 

 sician. 



Dr. Good, an accomplished scholar and a voluminous medical writer, 

 speaks of " Zoology as something on which v/e may perpetually dwell 

 with new and glowing delight, and new and growing improvement ; a 

 combination of allurements that draw us, and fix us, and facinate us 

 with a sort of paramount and magical captivity." 



The dying moments of Sir Humphrey Davy were devoted to reflec- 

 tions upon the electrical JisJies, the electricity of which he supposed to be 

 sui generis. Being unable, then, to test this experimentally, he enjoined 

 upon his brother. Dr. John Davy, to perform experiments with that 

 view, upon the torpedo, the gymnotus, and the silurus electricus. A cor- 

 respondent of the Western Journal of Medicine for August, 1846, writes 

 from London, that the distinguished Professor Grant is delivering a 

 course of lectures on Zoology in that city, in which he speaks of the 

 habits of the oyster, and the circulation of a lobster, with ail the fire of 

 a temperance lecturer. 



In modern times, expeditions, at the national expense, have been sent 

 to explore the natural history of different countries — one of the most 

 remarkable of which, was that under Napoleon, in Egypt. That learned 

 and colossal work. Description de L^Egyj^fe, was written, as it were, 

 amid the clang of arms. If that was a sublime thought to which Napo- 

 leon gave utterance just before the battle of the Pyramids, when, pointing 

 to the summits of those mysterious monuments, he told the army that 

 forty centuries were then looking down upon them : — " Songez que du 

 liaid de ces monumens quarante siicles vous contemplent /" how much 

 more sublime was the spectacle within the walls of the Egyptian Insti- 

 tute, where the soldier laid down the sword for the pen, and after a hard 

 fought battle, resumed the profoundest studies on the sciences, arts, and 

 natural history of ancient and modern Egypt. It is remarkable that 

 these mammoth folios, descriptive and pictorial, left an unexplored field 

 in which Samuel George Morton, M. D., of Philadelphia, has gathered 



