CHABACTEES OF EECENT CliOCODILIA. 25 



the anterior margins of the orbits : the fifteen anterior rows may 

 be tenned subcervical, as they lie in front of the thorax. In the 

 first six rows the scutes are very small, and increase in number up 

 to twelve in a row. In the next six rows there are ten scutes 

 in a row, and in the last three, twelve. All these rows are sym- 

 metrically divided by the median line. In the three hinder rows 

 the inner scutes are longer than the outer ones ; and this is most 

 markedly the case in the fifteenth row, whose innermost scute is 

 half as long again as the corresponding one of the preceding row, 

 and more than three times as long as the outermost of its own 

 row. 



The sixteenth row differs from its predecessors and successors, 

 and may be termed the axillary row. It is bent upon itself with 

 an angle open forwards, and is divided into two halves (each of 

 which contains seven scutes) by the union of the middle scutes of 

 the fifteenth subcervical with those of the first row of what may 

 be termed the subdorsal scutes, or those which lie imder the 

 thorax and abdomen. Of subdorsal and subcaudal scutes there 

 are, up to the broken-oft' end of the tail, thirty-seven rows, with the 

 following numbers of scutes : — 



Rows. Scutes. Rows. Scutes. 



I 12 22 18 



2 10 23 22 



3,4,5 12 24 22 



6, 7, 8, 9 14 25 • 20 



10 16 26—28 18 



II 14 29—31 16 



12—17 14 32—34 14 



18—20 12 35 12 



21 14 36,37 10 



It will be noticed that there are three more rows of ventral 

 than of dorsal scutes. On endeavouring to ascertain how this 

 came about, I observed that the first subdorsal was a good deal 

 behind the first dorsal row, though the eighth to the twelfth 

 dorsal corresponded exactly with the eighth to the twelfth ventral 

 rows. In the anterior part of the body, therefore, there is a clear 

 general correspondence between the segments of the dorsal and 

 those of the ventral armour. 



In the caudal region, again, I found that the twenty-fourth ven- 

 tral row, which is the first of the caudal rows not excavated by the 



