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Spener's fossil was supposed by him to be a crocodile; and Faujas has 

 gone so far, as to determine it to be actually a gavial ; but his error is at 

 once proved, by the shortness of the muzzle. Cuvier, on the contrary, 

 shows that this head alone determines the genus of this animal. If it 

 had been the head of a crocodile, there must have been at least fifteen 

 teeth in the lower jaw, and seventeen or eighteen in the upper jaw ; and 

 which would have reached to beneath the middle of the orbits : but in 

 these fossil remains there have been but eleven, which stop at the ante- 

 rior angle of the orbit. These are the characters of one of the numerous 

 species which have been heaped together by Linnaeus, under the name 

 of Lacerta monitor, and distinguished by Daudin by the inappropriate 

 generic name Tupinambis. 



In the fossil of Swedenborg, the hind feet, the impressions of which 

 are well preserved, show five unequal toes, of which the fourth is the 

 longest. These are formed of the number of small bones, and in the 

 order here set down, beginning with the thumb, and including the meta- 

 carpal bones 3, 4, 5, 6, 4 ; but in that species of ape Guenon> or Cerco- 

 pithecus, the number and order would be 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, and the third toe 

 the longest. In Linck's specimen the same series is discoverable as in 

 Swedenborg's. 



Hence it appears, that the number and order of the toes, as well 

 as the number and order of the articulations of each toe, of this fossil 

 animal, precisely agree with those of the monitor, as well as of the 

 common lizards and of the iguana; but not at all with those of the cro- 

 codiles, which have on their hind feet but four toes, differing but little in 

 length, and the number and order of bones being 3, 4, 5, 4. 



In the fore feet of the fossil animal five nearly equal toes may be made 

 out. This agrees with those of the crocodile and lizards, but in these 

 the last toe is evidently smallest. 



The length of the fossil animal appears to have been about three feet, 

 which is about the size to which the monitors of Egypt, of Congou, and 



