CATALOGUE OF SHIELD REPTILES. 



21 



or has he erroneously ticketed the specimen ? How are 

 we to disentangle these errors?" &c. (vol. v. p. 41). 



Dumoril & Bibron, in their ' Erpe'tologie Gcnerale ' (vol. 

 in. p. 75), adopt and repeat all that Cuvier has said, and 

 still doubt if these two varieties may not be found, the one 

 in America, the other in Africa. 



If Cuvier and his successors had examined the two spe- 

 cimens on which they founded the account of his second 

 variety of C. jaaipebrosus, they would have found that they 

 were not only distinct species, but also species belonging 

 to two genera or subgenera. The one which had served as 

 the model for Seba, and which Seba, with the usual in- 

 attention to true habitats at that period, said came from 

 Ceylon, was a true Alligator and a native of America ; and 

 the other, ticketed by Adanson as from the Niger, was 

 really a Crocodile from Africa : so that the sarcastic obser- 

 vation which he made on travellers, and which may in 

 some cases be true, was in this instance uncalled for, the 

 traveller being in fact more accurate than the cabinet 

 naturalist ; and Adanson only made a slip of the pen in 

 saying that the beak was longer instead of shorter than the 

 common Green Crocodile ; and any one who compares the 

 Black Crocodile of Africa with an American Caiman will 

 not think II. Beauvois was very much out when he culled 

 it a " Caiman." 



Cuvier, in his Essay, when describing Grocodilus biseuta- 

 tus, established on the Gavial </n Senegal of Adanson, again 

 refers to the Crocodile noir of that author. He states that 

 among the drawings of Adanson there is a figure of a Cro- 

 codilus vulgaris named Crocodile noir, and a Caiman a 

 pjaupiieres osseuses inscribed the Crocodile vert. This must 

 evidently have been an inadvertence, like the length of the 

 nose ; but, as Cuvier observed, this is pardonable, as Adanson 

 most probably named these drawings after he had forgotten 

 them, and had been studying other things, long after his 

 voyage, which occupied some of the first years of his 

 youth. (See Cuvier, Oss. Foss. iii. p. 53.) 



A Caiman, in some of its characters, but which is never- 

 theless a true Crocodile, with the canines fitting into a 

 notch and not into a pit in the upper jaw, is, there cannot 

 be a doubt, the Crocodile that Adanson referred to : for it 

 agrees with his description in its colour and in its ferocious 

 habits. And further, that it is the Crocodile that the 

 French naturalists refer to, is proved by the fact, already 

 recorded, that we have received from one of the persons 

 employed by M. Dumeril at the Paris Museum a skeleton 

 of a young specimen of the Black Crocodile of West Africa 

 as the skeleton of the American Alligator pedpebrosus of 

 Cuvier. 



Dr. Strauch refuses to believe that " Le Crocodile noir '' 

 of Adanson is the Crocodilus frontatus, which is universally 

 known as the Black Crocodile in West Africa, where Cro- 

 codilus cataphractus is called a Gavial (see Zool. Bee. 

 1866, p. 122). He afterwards gives in detail the reasons 

 why he refers Adanson's " Crocodile noir " to C. cataphrac- 

 tus aninot to C. frontatus, and states that Adanson's " Ga- 

 vial du Senegal," which is the C. biscutatus, Cuvier, is in 

 fact an American species and identical with C. acutus 

 (Bull. Ac. Sc. St. Petersb. xiii. p. 51, or Melang. Biol, 

 vi. p. 622; Zool. Bee. 1S68, p. 120). These observations 

 are a good example of the mistakes an industrious compiler 

 may fall into. Ho forgets that Adanson wrote in Senegal 

 about Senegal animals, and was not likely to describe or 

 figure an American species. The best way to explain his 

 descriptions is to compare them with West-African speci- 

 mens, and with the names given to them by the inha- 

 bitants. 



b. Face very long, slender ; nasal not reaching to tin 

 nostril. Gavialoid Crocodiles. 



7. MECISTOPS. 



Face subcylindrical, scarcely dilated in the middle ; orbits 

 simple. Nuchal shields numerous, small, in two cross 

 scries. Cervical disk narrow, containing two or three 

 pairs of plates. Dorsal plates small, all keeled, in six 

 longitudinal series, lateral one narrowest. Intermaxil- 

 lary produced behind, and embracing the front end of the 

 nasal. 



^fecistops, Gray, Ann. Sr Mar/. Nat. Hist. 3rd series, x. 

 p. 273 ; Cat. Tort. § Croc. ' B. M. p. 58 ; Trans. Zool. 

 Soe. 1869, vi. p. 156. 



Huxley, Proc. Linn. Soe. iv. p. 15, 1859. 



This genus has some resemblance to the Gavials ; but the 

 structure of the skull and the position of the teeth are those 

 of a true Crocodile. 



Professor Owen observes. '• There is, however, a very 

 close resemblance in the elongate, slender proportion of the 

 skull, and the elongated festooned border of the jaws, 

 between this species and the Crocodilus Schlegelii from 

 Borneo." — Loc. cit. p. 158. The Crocodilus Schlegelii is a 

 Gavial. 



Dr. Falconer observes, " The nasal bones (in Mccistops) 

 are extremely narrow and attenuated ; but, as in the true 

 Crocodiles, they descend between the maxillaries so as to 

 project into a notch between the intermaxillaries. The 



