CROCODILIA. 133 



the London and Hampshire basins to the height of one thousand feet, and forming the 

 graveyard of countless Crocodiles and Gavials ? Whither trended that great stream, 

 once the haunt of Alligators and the resort of tapir-like quadrupeds, the sandy bed of 

 which is now exposed on the upheaved face of Hordwell Cliff ? 



Had any of the human kind existed and traversed the land where now the base of 

 Britain rises from the ocean, he might have witnessed the Gavial cleaving the waters of its 

 native river with the velocity of an arrow, and ever and anon rearing its long and slender 

 snout above the waves, and making the banks re-echo with the loud and sharp snappings 

 of its formidably-armed jaws. He might have watched the deadly struggle between the 

 Crocodile and Palseothere, and have been himself warned by the hoarse and deep bellow- 

 ings of the AUigator from the dangerous vicinity of its retreat. Our fossil evidences 

 supply us with ample materials for this most strange picture of the animal life of ancient 

 Britain, and what adds to the singularity and interest of the restored ' tableau vivant,' 

 is the fact that it could not now be presented in any part of the world. The same 

 forms of Crocodilian Reptile, it is true, still exist, but the habitats of the Gavial and the 

 •Vlligator are wide asunder, thousands of miles of land and ocean intervening : one is 

 peculiar to the tropical rivers of continental Asia, the other is restricted to the warmer 

 latitudes of North and South America ; both forms are excluded from Africa, in the 

 rivers of which continent true Crocodiles alone are found. Not one representative of 

 the Crocodilian order naturally exists in any part of Europe ; yet every form of the 

 order once flourished in close proximity to each other in a territory which now forms 

 part of England. 



Order — Lacertilia. 



Pleurodont Lizard. Plate 3 {Ophidians), figs. 43, 44. 



Although members of the present order, with the modern proccelian type of 

 vertebra:, existed in England during the Wealden and Chalk periods, and the greater 

 part of the actual class of Reptiles, in all parts of the world, is composed of the same 

 order, yet but one solitary example of true Lacertian from the formations of the Eocene 

 tertiary period has hitherto come under my observation — a fact which has often excited 

 my surprise. Future researches may bring to light farther and better evidence of the 

 class. 



Among the fossils obtained by Mr. Colchester from the Eocene sand, underlying 

 the Red Crag at Kyson, or Kingston, in Suffolk, the existence of a Lizard, about the 

 size of the Iguana, is indicated by a part of a lower jaw, armed with close-set, slender, 

 subcylindrical, antero-posteriorly compressed teeth, attached to shallow alveoli, and 

 with their bases protected by an external parapet of bone. The fragment of jaw is 

 traversed by a longitudinal groove on the inside (fig. 44), and is perforated, as in 

 most modern Lizards, by numerous vascular foramina along the outside (fig. 43). 

 The teeth are hollow at their base. 



