$34 Neto Kind of American Crocodile. 



dile of Saint Domingo had a great resemblance to that of 

 tlie Nile, thought it a matter of importance to furnish na- 

 turalists with the means of confinuing this eircumstance: 

 he therefore was desirous of making a sacrifice to us of two 

 crocodiles which had been presented to him. The arrival 

 of the younger, which was brought over alive, was an- 

 nounced at the time in the pubHc journals ; but it died just 

 when about to be landed at Havre. The second reachca us 

 in Nivose : it was much larger ; it had been properly pre- 

 pared at Saint Domingo, and served as an original for de- 

 lineating the ligure which accompanies this memoir. (See 

 Plate \C) 



The fact mentioned by the officers attached to general 

 Leclerc's staff, was not yet known : on the contrary, natu- 

 ralists were persuaded that America contained only one kind 

 of crocodile*, the principal characters of which were an 

 obtuse muzzle, a cavitv in the upper jaw for receiving the 

 fourth lower tooth, and the hind-feet half-wcbbed. They 

 were therefore much surprised to see arrive from Saint Do- 

 mingo a crocodile similar to those of the old continent, 

 having, like them, the muzzle oblong, an indentation in 

 the side of the upper jaw to afford a passage to the fourth 

 lower tooth, and the hind-feet entirely webbed. Our first 

 suspicion on receiving this auim.al w:vs, that the identity of 

 species was proved, and that thus the real crocodile existed 

 in the warm countries of both hemispheres. 



This, however, was a result so contrary to one of the 

 finest laws established by Buffon, a law of the greatest im- 

 portance in zoology as well as in the history of the revolu- 

 tions of the globe^that I did not think proper to admit this 

 first idea without a more accurate examination. 



This law, founded on an observation Buffon had made, 

 that no species of the torrid zone had been primitively 

 placed in both continents, had either never been contra- 

 dicted, or had been so only by objections the weak founda- 

 tion of which had been soon discovered. 



I therefore compared the crocodile of Saint Domingo 

 with that wliich I had brought from F-gvpt, and it gave me 

 pleasure to find tliat there was a difference between these 

 animals sufficient to make them be considered as two di- 

 stinct species ; for I do not think there is any reason for 

 obscrvin'i', in oppo'^ition, that their differences ought to be 

 ascribed to age. They are both nearly of the same size; 



* See tilt txcel'icnt Difsertation of my colleague Cuvicr, read in the 

 Niitional Insttute, and which he publibhed in Wiedemann's .-Annals of 

 Zoology and Zootomy. 



and 



