202 THE HERPETOLOGY OF CUBA. 



A piece of meat is hung about the net for bait and while the turtles are tugging 

 at the meat the whole affair is hoisted and they are caught. They are then 

 kept in a stockade or pen in shallow water and fed upon table-scraps until needed. 

 They are also often caught by sinking a barrel until its rim is only about 

 six inches above water. A plank is laid across the barrel's open end and slant- 

 ing boards make this a convenient place to "take the sun" as the Cubans say. 

 But when evening comes they dive from the cross-boards into the barrel, whence 

 they cannot escape. 



REPTILIA: LORICATA. 

 Crocodylidae. 



Key to the species of Crocodylus. 



a' Four nuchal scales, no longitudinal ridge in front of eye acutus, p. 202 



a- Six or eight large nuchal scales, an obtuse ridge in front of each eye rhombifer, p. 203 



67. Crocodylus acutus Cuvier. 

 Plate 12, fig. 1. 

 Caiman. 



Diagnosis: — A crocodile having four nuchal scales forming a square, a 

 more or less distinct median ridge or swelling along the middle of the snout and 

 no longitudinal ridge in point of the eye. Colour rather Ught oHve, yellowish 

 beneath. 



Description: — This creatiore is so widely known that a detailed description 

 would be quite superfluous. The diagnosis given above serves to distinguish 

 this species from C. rhombifer the only other with which it might be confused. 



The remarks quoted from Gundlach and added under C. rhombifer include 

 much information regarding this species, as well. While C. rhombifer is essen- 

 tially Cuban, C. acutus is very widely distributed. It is still found spar- 

 ingly in some of the Keys and about Cape Sable in Florida although it has 

 probably been quite exterminated in Biscayne Bay, whence Jeffries Wyman 

 recorded it in 1870. It is rare but still to be found in both Haiti and Jamaica, 

 while about the estuaries and saUne lagoons of the coasts of Honduras and 

 Nicaragua it is excessively abimdant. In general its range in Central America 

 may be said to extend from the coasts of Vera Cruz at least to Darien and on 

 the Pacific coast it occurs from western Mexico to Ecuador. 



