2386 CROCODILES, DINOSAURS, AND FLYING DRAGONS 



from which they are separated by a considerable interval. Moreover, the bony 

 union between the two branches of the lower jaw is of great length, extending at 

 least as far back as the fifteenth tooth; and including a bone which in the other 

 crocodiles remains entirely separate from the symphysis. In neither do the teeth 

 attain the large dimensions characteristic of many other members of the family. 



Schlegel's garial has the shorter snout of the two, its length not exceeding 

 three and a half times its basal width; but it is especially distinguished by the cir- 

 cumstance that the nasal bones extend forward to articulate with the anterior jaw- 

 bones, or premaxillse. The teeth are twenty or twenty-one in number on each side 

 of the upper jaw, and eighteen or nineteen in the lower; those on the sides of the 

 latter being received in pits between the upper ones, and the first, fourth, and ninth 

 lower teeth being enlarged. The bony plates on the neck and back form a con- 

 tinuous shield consisting of four longitudinal, and twenty-two transverse rows; and 

 while the fore-toes are webbed at the base, the outer ones of the hind-feet have 

 larger webs. In color, Schlegel's garial is olive above, with dark spots or bars; 

 while its length may be twelve or fourteen feet. In habits this species is probably 

 very similar to the Indian garial. It is important to notice that several fossil rep- 

 resentatives of this genus occur in the Tertiary deposits of Europe, while it is not 

 improbable that the genus is also represented in the underlying Cretaceous rocks. 

 All this is exactly in harmony with what we should naturally have expected to be 

 the case, seeing that Schlegel's garial, like the true garial, is evidently a very gen- 

 eralized member of the family. 



Probably owing to a clerical error on the part of its first describer the 

 slender-snouted crocodile known in India by the vernacular name of 

 garial, is almost always spoken of in Europe as the gavial, while its misspelled name 

 has even been Latinized into Gavialis an error which some writers persist in per- 

 petuating. The garial (Garialis g angelica) is readily distinguished at a glance from 

 all other crocodiles by the exceeding length and slenderness of its snout; the length 

 varying from more than five times the basal width in the young to rather more than 

 three in the adult. This narrow snout gives to the reptile a decidedly curious ap- 

 pearance; and it is perhaps noteworthy that both the garial and the gangetic dol- 

 phin, which inhabit the same rivers, and probably feed on the same kind of food, 

 have similarly -elongated beak-like snouts, armed with very similar curved and slender 

 conical teeth ; this resemblance being doubtless due to adaptation to a similar mode of 

 life. From Schlegel's garial, the present species is readily distinguished by the 

 nasal bones being very short, and consequently separated by a long interval from 

 the anterior jawbones, or premaxillae; while the teeth twenty-seven to twenty- 

 nine on each side of the upper, and twenty-five or twenty-six in the lower jaw are 

 all of nearly-uniform size, and those of the lower jaw are not received into distinct 

 pits. Moreover, the bony union between the two branches of the lower jaw ex- 

 tends backward to the twenty-third or twenty-fourth tooth, whereas in the Bornean 

 species it stops short at the fourteenth or fifteenth. At its extremity the long and 

 narrow snout becomes much expanded; and in the male this expanded extremity is 

 surmounted by a hollow hump, in the centre of which are placed the nostrils. The 

 bony plates of the neck form a shield continuous with that of the back, in which 



