Crocodiles. 167 



authorities who copied him placed it among the 

 serpents; but Belon placed it with the fishes, 

 and over his woodcut, which represents the animal 

 walking along a river bank with "one foot in sea 

 and one on shore/' we find ''Portrait du Crocodile, 

 poisson du Nil," while below is the following 

 quatrain : 



Le Nil produit des monstres perilleux, 

 Lors que d'Egypte arrouse le pais. 

 Mais entre ceux, dont sommes esbahiz, 



Le Crocodile est le plus merveilleux. 



The naturalists of the last century, including 

 Linnaeus, classed it with the lizards, but in our 

 modern classification the crocodiles, gavials, and 

 alligators form an order Crocodilia by themselves. 

 It is not surprising that the naturalists of the last 

 and the early part of this century should thus have 

 classed the crocodilians with the lizards, when we 

 consider that they were guided by external appear- 

 ances only, and paid little, if any, attention to 

 anatomy; but anatomically there are many and 

 great differences between the two orders, differ- 

 ences which in this article it is impossible even to 

 touch on, and there is no doubt that their respec- 

 tive places in the animal kingdom have at last 

 been rightly determined. Popular misconceptions 

 die hard, and it is therefore not surprising that 

 two errors respectable from their age should still 

 hold their ground namely, that the crocodilians 

 are lizards, and that crocodile and alligator are 

 synonymous terms but that they do so is indis- 



