LIASSIC CROCODILES. 131 



blance between their fossil and the skeleton of the Crocodile to refer it to that 

 family of reptiles ; but their figures and descriptions gave rise to various opinions 

 respecting the affinities of the Whitby fossil in the writings of subsequent 

 naturalists and anatomists. Camper, for example, pronounced it to be a whale, 

 perhaps meaning a dolphin ; for, as Cuvier remarks, the presence of teeth in both 

 jaws at once, proves the fossil not to belong to the Baljenffi, which have no teeth, 

 nor to the Physeters, which have (conspicuous) teeth only in the lower jaw. 

 Faujas adopted Camper's opinion, referring the fossil to the genus Physeter, and 

 adding some reasons which are contradicted by the descriptions given by both 

 Chapman and Wooller. Cuvier, in the first edition of his ' Ossemens Fossiles,' 

 after refuting the opinion of Faujas, says, " La verite, ainsi que nous le verrons, 

 est que c'etoit reellement un crocodile." The subsequent analysis, to which 

 Cuvier here refers, led him in 1812 to the conclusion that it belonged to the genus 

 of Crocodiles, and was most probably identical in species with the Crocodile of 

 Honfleur. 



In 1836, however, when so many new and singular genera, allied to the Croco- 

 dilian family, had been added to the catalogues of Palgeontology, chiefly by the 

 labours and discoveries of English anatomists and geologists, Cuvier expresses his 

 opinion on the fossil described by "Wooller and Chapman with more caution. He 

 says, " II reste maintenant a savoir si c'est un crocodile, ou I'un de ces nouveaux 

 genres decouverts dans les memes bancs. Les os des extremites y sont trop 

 incomplets, et la tete n'y est pas represente avec assez de details pour decider la 

 question ; mais les vertebres me paraissent plus longues, relativement a leur dia- 

 metre, que dans les nouveaux genres, et plus semblables par ce caractere a celles 

 des Crocodiles. Ceux qui retrouveront 1' original, s'il existe encore, pourront seuls 

 nous apprendre si les autres caracteres repondent a celui-la." ^ 



A second specimen of a long and slender-nosed Crocodilian was obtained from 

 the lias near Whitby, between Staiths and Eunswick, in the year 1791;^ and a 

 more perfect skeleton was discovered in the alum shale of the lias formation at 

 Saltwick, near Whitby, in 1824. Both these specimens so closely resemble the 

 older fossil in all the points in which a comparison can be established, as to dissi- 

 pate the remaining doubts as to the nature and affinities of the specimen from the 

 same locality, described in the ' Philosophical Transactions ' for 1758. The skeleton, 

 discovered in 1824, is figured in Young and Bird's ' Geological Survey of the 

 Yorkshire Coast,' 2nd edit., 1828, pi. xvi, fig. J, p. 287, and in Dr. Buckland's 

 ' Bridgewater Treatise,' vol. ii, pi. xxv. It is now preserved in the museum at 

 Whitby, where I have closely examined it. In this specimen are preserved the 

 cranium, wanting the snout, the whole vertebral column, the ribs, and the principal 



1 " Eecherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles," torn. Seme, 2de partie, p. 114 ; 4to, 1824. 

 ' See ' History of Whitby,' vol. ii, pp. 779, 780. 



