22 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF ALABAMA 



FAMILY: CROCODYLIDAE 



GENUS: CROCODYLUS, Laurenti (Crocodilus). 



CROCODYLUS ACUTUS Cuvier ("C, americanus") 



Type locality : San Domingo. 



General distribution : Southern Florida and tropical 

 America. 



Alabama records : A young- specimen about three 

 feet long was caught after a cloudburst in the outskirts 

 of Mobile; as in similar cases it was said to have come 

 down with the rain. Mr. T. S. van Aller purchased the 

 specimen and later on presented it to the Alabama Mu- 

 seum of Natural History. Diligent search and examin- 

 ation of numerous alligators in the hope of finding other 

 specimens so as to establish the species as indigenous to 

 the State have thus far been in vain. 



GENUS: ALLIGATOR, Cuvier. 

 ALLIGATOR MISSISSIPPIENSIS (Daudin) Gray 



Type locality: "Les hordes du Mississippi." 



General distribution : Rivers and swamps of the coast- 

 al plain from North Carolina to Florida, Oklahoma, and 

 Texas. 



Alabama records : Mobile and Baldwin Counties ; 

 not uncommon up rivers to Selma and Eutaw or there- 

 abouts.* 



Mr. Julius Hurter and the writer on a collecting trip 

 to Baldwin County witnessed a captive alligator strug- 

 gling for its liberty expel three large specimens of a wa- 

 ter snake, Matrix rhombifera. 



*0n a trip by house-boat from Tuscaloosa to Jackson in October, 

 1908, a small dead alligator was seen in the river, about 50 miles 

 below Tuscaloosa, but no live ones on the whole trip. The bridge 

 tender at Epes on the Tombigbee when interrogated recently said 

 he knew of no alligators in the river there. A small specimen was 

 found in the Warrior River near Tuscaloosa July 23, 1922, but it 

 may possibly have escaped from captivity. The distribution of 

 this species seems to be much like that of the Spanish moss. (Til- 

 lundnia usneoides) . R. M. Harper. 



