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prevents the possibility of using grinders, did any really exist. More- 

 over the teeth of the two jaws are not opposite each other. Hence, 

 grinders would be wholly useless. It is evident that these, as well as all 

 the other naturalists whose works I have seen, are wrong in every essen- 

 tial particular relating to the dental apparatus. 



Both sets of long, pointed teeth, penetrate plank and wood of all kinds, 

 unless extremely hard. The crushing power of the jaws is vertical, not 

 lateral or grinding. Both jaws present, along their dental or alveolar 

 margins, an undulating or curving line, which, in the Nilotic Crocodile, 

 seems more salient, if I may judge from the engravings of St. Hilaire, and 

 a few others. The teeth correspond to this undulation, as does one jaw 

 to the other. The general bearing of this line is several degrees above 

 the horizon, commencing at the muzzle, and running backward to the 

 posterior angle of the mouth. The form and situation of the dental organs, 

 together with the osteological configuration of the jaws, vqwAqy grinding 

 operations quite impossible. The animals found in the stomachs of 

 Alligators, examples of which will be given, show that their prey is 

 killed by penetrating bayonet-like wounds, and are swallowed without 

 mastication. The crushing and prehensory power of the jaws and teeth, 

 is as remarkable as it is unquestionable. 



To classify the crocodilian family by its dental organization, is alto- 

 gether erroneous, so long as the shape, situation, arrangement and num- 

 ber of the teeth are not as yet ascertained. Scarcely any two authors 

 agree in so simple a matter as the number of the teeth. Goldsmith says 

 there are 27 in the upper and 15 in the lower jaw, and the authors already 

 quoted, all give different aggregates. 



As this animal has no lips, its teeth, especially in the upper jaw, are 

 naked and salient, even when the mouth is shut, contributing much to its 

 hideous physiognomy, and have probably prejudiced naturalists against 

 its character. 



Herodotus, Pliny, Aristotle, and many more modern savans, including 

 certain French academicians, assert that the upper jaw moves indepen- 

 dently of the head, though both are known to constitute a continuous 

 mass of bone, without any flexible articulation. I have for hours forced 

 the jaws asunder by levers, elevating the upper jaw, and with it the 

 head. The cranium, and the superior maxillary bone, constitute a con- 

 tinuous pyramidal mass of osseous matter, the base of which is the skull, 

 and the apex the muzzle. 



Here a digression becomes necessary, the propriety of which can 

 hardly be called in question, by any one who may do me the honor to 

 read the same with attention. My crocodilian researches have led me 

 to attribute most of the errors (so servilely copied for twenty-two cen- 

 turies), to Herodotus, whom Cicero so justly calls the Father of History. 

 From what this author has said concerning the ears of the Crocodile, I 

 infer that he never saw one of these animals. His account is very brief, 

 and may be found in Euterpe, a name which his second book received 

 in a manner so flattering to himself, and so honorable to the discrimina- 

 tion of the Greeks, who, having heard his nine books read at the Olympic 

 games, named them by acclamation after the nine Muses. 



In the huge folios of Natural History, produced by the French expe- 



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