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 
a2 Six or eight large nuchal scales, an obtuse ridge infrontofeacheye . . . . . rhombifer, p. 203 
67. CRocoDYLUS AcuUTUS 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 light olive, yellowish 
beneath. 
Description: — This creature 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 saline lagoons of the coasts of Honduras and 
Nicaragua it is excessively abundant. 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. 
