the Crocodile of the Nile. 13T 



Tjv se\'eral distinguished anatomists, I thought it suflicient 

 to confine myself to the consideration of the organs which 

 might have escaped their examination; so that wliat I now 

 publish contains only some additions to the history of an 

 animal iaiown since the earliest ages. 



I. Of the Manner in zvhlch the Jaws are moved. 



Who could believe, considering the present state of sci- 

 ence, that this question is still problematical ? It has been 

 combated bv a great number of travellers and naturalists, 

 but none of thein, as will be seen, have completely solved it. 



Herodotus is the first who asserts that the crocodile is the 

 only knov.n animal whose upper jaw is moveable on the 

 lower, which remains fixed : his opinion has been followed 

 by all the antients. Aristotle, Pliny, &c., and some of the 

 moderns, such as Margrave, Oligerus, Jacobaeus, Marmol, 

 the illustrious Vesalius, and some Jesuit missionaries to 

 Siam, who had an opportunity of seeing living crocodiles, 

 or of examining them soon atter death, all speak of them 

 in the same tefms ; but little attention was paid to these 

 testimonies. The first anatomists of the Academy of Sci- 

 ences undertook to demonstrate the impossibility of the fact 

 advanced by Herodotus, and the names of Perrault and 

 Duverney tended lo establish this opinion, which has been 

 adopted by the naturalists who have since written on the 

 crocodile. 



It is no doubt very surprising that Perrault, known for 

 his accuracy, and who carefully dissected a crocodile from 

 the menagerie of Versailles, did not pay sufficient attention 

 to the singular conformation of the head of this animal ; 

 and that he should have opposed with so much violence the 

 opinion of the antients. He gives a minute description 

 of the articulation of the jaws, without obser\'ing that it 

 furnishes proofs against the fact w hich he proposed to esta- 

 blish ; and he besides supposed that he had done it in a satis- 

 factory manner by rectifying the errors of Marmol, which 

 he falsely ascribed to Vesalius, and by proving, with reason, 

 that the upper jaw is not, as in perroquets, separated from 

 the cranium, but that it forms with the rest of the head one 

 osseous piece. 



Since men of such merit as Perrault, Duverney, and the 

 otlier naturalists who have since examined crocodiles in col- 

 lections, could doubt of a fact attested by so great a number 

 of observers, this question must certainly be embarrassed by 

 a ditliculiy which can be cleared up only by an exact de- 

 scription of the head, and of the organs by which it is moved. 



The 



