2 University of Michigan 



crocodile was not heard of again until 1869, when the first 

 really scientific record of the American salt-water crocodile 

 (Crocodilus acutiis Cuv.), occurring within the confines of 

 the United States, appeared in the Proceedings of the Boston 

 Society of Natural History (1869, p. 78). This note records 

 that Dr. Jeft'ries Wyman exhibited the head of a crocodile, 

 C. acutus, obtained from the Miami River where it enters Key 

 Biscayne Bay. The skull was given to Dr. \\ yman by a ]\Ir. 

 William H. Hunt, a local resident, and was, he told Dr. 

 Wyman, the second to be killed at that spot. The note con- 

 cludes by adding that the existence of a true crocodile had 

 not been previously recognized within the limits of the United 

 States. This historic skull is now preserved in the Boston 

 Society of Natural History, labeled by Dr. Wyman himself, 

 and is No. 2,212 of the Wyman Catalogue. 



The following year (Amer. Jour. Sci. Arts, 49, 1870, p. 

 105) Dr. \\'yman described in more detail how he happened 

 to secure the skull, and he gives a series of careful measure- 

 ments. \\'yman's friends year after year, one or another, vis- 

 ited Florida with him, for he w^as impelled annually by ill 

 health to seek a milder winter climate. Mr. George Augustus 

 Peabody, of Danvers, who still lives at Burleigh Farm in 

 Danvers, went with him on many of these journeys, and the 

 opportunities to hear from Mr. Peabody the charming remi- 

 niscences of his gifted and whimsical companion will long be 

 looked back upon with pleasure. In 1869, however, Wyman 

 went for v.hat I believe was his only trip to Biscayne Bay 

 when he was a guest of Mr. J. Murray Forbes on board his 

 yacht "The Azalea." Miami then was a tiny settlement of half 

 a dozen houses clustered about Brickell's store, which was 

 located not far from where the Royal Palm Hotel stands now. 

 There was probably not a settlement in the United States that 



