CROCODILIANS. 295 



It follows, therefore, that the number of the teeth of the Crocodile 

 is as great when the animal first sees the light as when it has acquired 

 its full size ; and, owing to the rapidity of their succession, the 

 cavity at the base of the fully-formed tooth is never consoli- 

 dated. 



The fossil jaws of the extinct Crocodilians demonstrate that the 

 same law regulated the succession of the teeth at the ancient epochs 

 when those highly organised reptiles prevailed in greatest num- 

 bers, and under the most varied generic and specific modifications, 

 as at the present period when they are reduced to a single family, 

 composed of so few and slightly varied species, as to have con- 

 stituted in the system of Linnaeus a small fraction of the genuS 

 Lacerta. 



