ISO THE CATMAlf. 



acutus, Cuv.) ; their colour was dark-green on the "back, and 

 white below the belly, with yellow spots on the flanks. 1 

 counted, as in all the real crocodiles, thirty-eight teeth in 

 the upper jaw, and thirty in the lower; in the former, the 

 tenth and ninth ; and in the latter, the first and fourth, were 

 the largest. In the description made by M. Bonpland and 

 myself, on the spot, we have expressly marked that the lower 

 fourth tooth rises over the upper jaw. The posterior ex- 

 tremities were palmated. These crocodiles of Batabano 

 appeared to us to be specifically identical with the Crocodilus 

 acutus. It is true that the accounts we heard of their 

 habits did not quite agree with what we had ourselves 

 observed on the Orinoco ; but carnivorous reptiles of the 

 same species are milder and more timid, or fiercer and more 

 courageous, in the same river, according to the nature of the 

 localities. The animal called the cayman, at Batabauo, died 

 on the way, and was not brought to us, so that we could 

 make no comparison of the two species.* I have no doubt 

 that the crocodile with a sharp snout, and the alligator or 

 cayman with a snout like a pike,f inhabit together, but 

 in distinct bands, the marshy coast between Xagua, the 

 Surgidero of Batabano, and the island of Pinos. In that 

 island Dampierwas struck with the great difference between 

 the caymans and the American crocodiles. After having 

 described, though not always with perfect correctness, several 

 of the characteristics which distinguish crocodiles from 

 caymans, he traces the geographical distribution of those 

 enormous saurians. " In the bay of Campeachy," he says, 

 " I saw only caymans or alligators ; at the island of Great 

 Cayman, there are crocodiles and no alligators ; at the 

 island of Pinos, and in the innumerable creeks of the coast 



* The four bags filled with musk (bolzas del almizcle) are, in the cro- 

 codile of Batabano, exactly in the same position as in that of the Rio 

 Magdalena, beneath the lower jaw and near the anus. I was much 

 surprised at not perceiving the smell of musk at the Havannah, three 

 days after the death of the animal, in a temperature of 30, while at 

 Mompox, on the banks of the Magdalena, living crocodiles infected our 

 apartment. I have since found, that Dampier also remarked " an absence 

 of smell in the crocodile of Cuba, where the caymans spread a very strong 

 smell of musk." 



f Crocodilus acutus of Sap DpnaingQ. Alligator lucius of Florida ajtf 

 the Mississippi 



