205 



CROCODILID^E. 



CROCODILHXE. 



208 



In young subjects the back and limbs are transversely banded with 

 black. The lower region of the body is very pale yellow or whitish. 

 The jaws are sprinkled with brown. The nails are of a clear horn 

 colour. (Dume'ril and Bibron.) 



The Qavial of the Ganges is supposed to be the largest of the living 

 Suurians. The measurement of the largest mentioned by Messrs. Du- 

 iiidril and Bibron is given at 5 metres, 40 centimetres (17 feet 8 inches). 



Cuvier was led to think, principally from the figures published by 

 Faujas de Saint-Fond, that there was more than one species of 

 Gavial, and on subsequent inquiry distinguished two, the Great 

 Gavial and the Little Gavial ; but he was afterwards satisfied, from 

 the examination of numerous specimens, that age alone made the 

 difference between them. 



Fotril Crocodilidee. 



"In the living sub-genera of the Crocodilean family," observes 

 Dr. Buckland (' Bridgewater Treatise,' p. 250), " we see the elongated 

 and slender beak of the Gavial of the Ganges constructed to feed on 

 fishes; whilst the shorter and stronger snout of the broad-nosed 

 crocodiles and alligators gives them the power of seizing and 

 devouring quadrupeds that come to the banks of rivers in hot coun- 

 tries to drink. As there were scarcely any Mammalia during the 

 secondary periods, whilst the waters were abundantly stored with 

 fishes, we might, a priori, expect that if any Crocodilean forms had 

 then existed, they would most nearly have resembled the modern 

 Gavial : and we have hitherto found only those genera which have 

 elongated beaks in formations anterior to and including the chalk ; 

 whilst true crocodiles with a short and broad snout like that of the 

 caiman and the alligator appear for the first time in strata of the 

 tertiary periods, in which the remains of Mammalia abound." 



The genus Stenewaunu of Geoffroy St. Hilaire appears to come the 

 nearest in its corformation to the living Gavial, and a general idea of 

 the structure of the muzzle and anterior nasal aperture will be 

 derived from the following cut of a specimen from Havre ; whilst 



chc. 



Muzzle of Steneotauna, from Dr. Buckland, who i 



in Tcleotaunu (Geoff.), though there is considerable similarity in the 

 general contour of the head and jaws, the conformation of the muzzle 

 and nasal aperture is very different from that of the living Saurian, 

 the anterior termination of that aperture forming almost a vertical 

 section of the extremity of the upper mandible. 



a, head of Teltotaurua CVinpmanni, seen from above ; 6, head of another 

 Individual of the same species seen from below, showing the lower jaw : 

 locality of both, Lias in the neighbourhood of AVhitby ; c, inside view of 

 anterior extremity of lower jaw : locality, Great Oolite at Enslow near Wood- 

 lock, <),vm. From l)r. Cuckland. 



Anterior extremities of the beak or jaws of Teleaiauna. Locality, Great 

 Oolite, Stoncsneld, Oxon. From Dr. Buckland. 



In his monograph on the ' Fossil Reptilia ' of the London Clay, 

 puMifhedby the Palacorftographical Society, Professor Owen describes 

 the following species of extinct Emydosaurians. 



"idilui Toliapicu. It is the Crocodile de Sheppey of Cuvier; 

 C. Spenceri of Buckland, in his ' Bridgewater Treatise,' and of Rose in 

 the 'Reports of the British Aasociation,' 1841. 



It was found originally in the Eocene beds of Sheppey, and was first 

 described by Baron Cuvier from a specimen in the collection of M. 

 Deluc of Geneva. Professor Owen doubts if the skull figured by Dr. 



Buckland (and given below) as C. Spenceri is identical with a more 

 perfect specimen of this species now in the British Museum, from 

 which he has given his own description. 



Skull of Crocodilus Spenceri. Buckland. 



C. Champsoides (Owen). This species seems also to have been 

 included in Buckland's C. Spenceri, and Cuvier' s Crocodile de Sheppey. 

 This species has been established from a skull in the possession of 

 Mr. Bowerbank, and although not to be clearly identified with Buck- 

 land's C. Spenceri more nearly resembles it than C, Toliapicus. 



" The evidences," says Professor Owen, " of Crocodilean Reptiles 

 from the deposits at Sheppey, less characteristic than those above 

 described, are abundant. Mr. Bowerbank possesses numerous rolled 

 and fractured vertebrae, condyloid extremities, and other portions of 

 long bones, with fragments of jaws and teeth." In relation to the 

 two Sheppey species he says, " Amongst the existing species of Croco- 

 dile, the C. acutus of the West Indies offers the nearest approach to 

 the C. Toliapicui ; and the C. Schlcydii of Borneo most resembles the 

 C. Champioidet." 



C. Hcutingsice (Owen). The specimen upon which this species is 

 established was discovered by the Marchioness of Hastings in the 

 Eocene Fresh-Waterdeposits of the Hordwell Cliffs in Hampshire, which 

 her ladyship has described in the volume of ' Reports of the British 

 Association ' for 1847. 



Alligator Jlantoniensis (Searles Wood). The specimens of this 

 fossil differ from the last in the exposed condition of the inferior 

 canines when the mouth is shut. Although this distinction is suffi- 

 cient to separate the existing species of Crocodiles and Alligators, 

 Professor Owen is inclined to doubt whether it may not be in this 

 case a mere accidental variety. 



Qavialis IHxoni (Owen). The remains on which this species is 

 established were discovered by the late Mr. Frederick Dixon in the 

 Eocene deposits of Bracklesham. 



In concluding the monograph in which these Fossil Crocodiles are 

 minutely described and figured, and the skeletal anatomy of the 

 family treated at large, Professor Owen says, " On reviewing the 

 information which we have derived from the study of the fossil 

 remains of the Procseliau Crocodilia that have been discovered in the 

 Eocene deposits of England, the great degree of climatal and geogra- 

 phical change, which this part of Europe must have undergone since 

 the period when every known generic form of that group of reptiles 

 flourished here, must be forcibly impressed upon the mind. 



"At the present day the conditions of earth, air, water, and warmth, 

 which are indispensable to the existence and propagation of these 

 most gigantic of living Saurians, concur only in the tropical or warmer 

 temperate latitudes of the globe. Crocodiles, Gavials, and Alligators 

 now require, in order to put forth in full vigour the powers of their 

 cold-blooded constitution, the stimulus of a large amount of solar 

 heat, with ample verge of watery space for the evolutions which they 

 practise in the capture and disposal of their prey. Marshes with 

 lakes, extensive sestuaries, large rivers, such as the Gambia and Niger 

 that traverse the pestilential tracts of Africa, or those that inundate 

 the country through which they run, either periodically, as the Nile 

 for example, or with boundless forest and savannahs, like those 

 ploughed in ever varying channels by the force of the mighty Amazon 

 or Orinoco, such form the theatres of the destructive existence of the 

 carnivorous and predacious Crocodilean Reptiles. And what then 

 must have been the extent and configuration of the Eocene continent 

 which was drained by the rivers that deposited the massess of clay 

 and sand accumulated in some parts of the London and Hampshire 

 basins to the height of 1000 feet, and forming the graveyard of count- 

 less Crocodiles and Gavials. Whither tended that great stream once 

 the haunt of alligators and the resort of taper-like quadrupeds, the 

 sandy bed of which is now exposed on the upheaved face of Hord- 

 well Cliff? Had any of the human kind existed and traversed the 

 land where now the base of Britain rises from the ocean, he might 

 have witnessed the Gavial cleaving the waters of its native river with 

 the velocity of an arrow, and ever and anon rearing its long and 

 slender snout above the waves, and making the banks re-echo with 

 the loud and sharp snapping of its formidably armed jaws. He might 

 have watched the deadly struggle between the Crocodile and Palsoo- 

 there, and have been himself warned by the hoarse ami deep bellow- 

 ings of the Alligator from the dangerous vicinity of its retreat. Our 

 fossil evidences supply us with ample materials for this most strange 



