114 BRITISH FOSSIL REPTILES. 



In preparing my ' Report on British Fossil Reptiles' for the British Association in 

 1841, I examined the original specimen figured by Dr. Buckland, in which unfortunately 

 the end of the snout with the intermaxillarics and an indeterminate proportion of the 

 maxillaries having been broken off and lost, no exact idea could be formed of the pro- 

 portions of the facial or rostral part of the skull. 



In a larger specimen of the fossil skull of a Crocodile from Sheppy, in the British 

 Museum, the whole of the upper, as well as the lower jaw, were preserved, and as the 

 proportions of the snout agreed with those of some true Crocodiles, and difi'ercd in an 

 equal degree with those species from the Gavial ; and as, like the Crocodiles and 

 Caimans, it presented the more important distinction of a different composition of that 

 part of the skull, I retained for the specimen in that ' Report' the name of Crocodilus 

 Spenceri, proposed by the author of the Bridgewater Treatise for the Sheppy Crocodile, 

 so diflFering from the Gavial. 



The able keeper of the Mineralogical Department of the British Museum, Charles 

 Konig, K.H., F.R.S., to whom I am indebted for every facility in describing and figuring 

 this specimen, has suggested that the name by whicli Baron Cuvier first indicated the 

 existence of a true Crocodile in the Eocene clay of Sheppy, should have the priority, 

 and I adopt, therefore, the name Crocodilus ioliapicus, which he has attached to the 

 specimen in question, and with the more readiness since I have now reason to doubt 

 whether the mutilated cranium, figured in the ' Bridgewater Treatise,' belongs to the 

 same species. 



The more entire fossil skull in question presents the following dimensions : 



Feet. Inches. Lines. 

 Total length from the hindmost part of the lower jaw 

 Breadth between the articular ends of the tympanies 



Do. across the orbits ...... 



Do. of the intertemporal space .... 



Do. of the interorbital space ..... 

 From the articular end of the tympanic to the orbit 

 From the occipital condyle to the orbit .... 

 From the orbit to the external nostril .... 

 Breadth of the cranium five inches in advance of the orbits 



Do. across the external nostril .... 



Depth of the lower jaw at the vacuity between the angular 



and surangular ....... 



Length of that vacuity 



Breadth of the base of one of the larger maxillary teeth . 



This remarkably fine fossil skull, which is figured one third of its natural size in PI. 2, 

 and PI. 2^, fig 1, presents proportions which come nearest to those of the Crocodilm 

 acutus, being longer in proportion to its basal breadth than in the Crocodilus SucJius, in 

 which the diameter between the articular ends of the tympanis (28) is just half the length 

 of the entire skull. The interorbital space in the Crocodilus Ioliapicus is relatively 



