CROCODILES 



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under the heading of the Malay Islands, although it also occurs in the Peninsula. 

 The true crocodiles, which comprise eleven or twelve species, are represented 

 within the Malay area by Crocodilus porosus, ranging from Ceylon and eastern 

 India to Australia and the Fiji Islands, and frequenting the lower courses of 

 rivers and the seashore, and also by the swamp or Indian crocodile (C. palustris) 

 inhabiting the rivers, ponds, and swamps over an area extending from the Malay 

 Archipelago to Sind and Baluchistan. 



In the first of these species the length of the snout is from one-and- two-thirds 

 to two-and-a-quarter times the width, whereas in the second the proportion is one- 

 and-a-third to one-and-a-half. Crocodilus porosus has, moreover, from seventeen to 

 nineteen pairs of teeth in the upper jaw, and a more or less strongty developed ridge 

 on the skull in front of each eye, whereas in C. palustris the number of pairs of 

 upper teeth is invariably nineteen, and there is no bony ridge in front of the eye. 

 The former is stated to attain the enormous length of 33 feet, and the latter appears 

 to fall but little short of these dimensions. 



