NOTE -BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 335 



of the London and Hampshire basins to the height of 

 one thousand feet, and forming the graveyard of count- 

 less crocodiles and gavials ? whither trended that great 

 stream, once the haunt of alligators and the resort of 

 tapii'-like quadrupeds, the sandy bed of which is now 

 exposed on the up-heaved face of Hordwell Cliff? 



No one is better qualified to give an answer to such 

 questions than the deep-thinking and eloquent querist. 

 Everything must fade after the vi-sdd picture here pre- 

 sented, and with it we close the scene : — 



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 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 

 bellowings of the alligator 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 produced in any part of the world. 

 The same forms of crocodilian reptiles, it is true, still exist, but 

 the habitats of the gavial and the alligator 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 Avarmer latitudes of North and South America ; both forms are 

 excluded from Africa, in the rivers of which continent true croco- 

 diles alone are foimd. 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. 



December, 1850. 



