A CROCODILE KILLED. 409 



especially states were less ferocious than those of 

 the Orinoco, for that " the people of New Barcelona 

 convey wood to market by floating the logs on the 

 river, while the proprietors swim here and there to 

 set them loose when they are stopped by the banks, 

 which he says they could not have done in most of 

 the South American rivers infested by these animals." 

 When he makes reference to the same animals in 

 the marshes of Cuba, he distinctly speaks of them as 

 two species of Crocodile, one of which he describes as 

 "having an elongated snout, and as being very fero- 

 cious. Daring and power in the water seem there- 

 fore to be the distinction of the Crocodile, and 

 timidity and stealthiness that of the Cayman ; a dif- 

 ference which we might infer from the difference in 

 the feet of the two reptiles." 



" Fehruarij I9th, 1849. — A Crocodile (the animal 

 we usually speak of as an alligator) had been taken 

 •in the fish-nets at Hanson's pond by a fishing party, 

 and brought into the King's House yard alive. It 

 had just been killed by a pistol bullet discharged into 

 its brain when I saw it. I attended whilst the ne- 

 groes skinned it, and had an opportunity afiEbrded me 

 of observing the several peculiarities which are men- 

 tioned as characteristic in the structure of Crocodiles. 

 I shall set them down as they successively came 

 under my notice. 



" On opening the jaws, the attention is taken by the 

 sight of a conspicuous cartilaginous plate before the 

 gullet, forming a ridge from one side of the fauces 

 to the other, and expanding upward to meet a similar 

 elastic fold depending from the back of the palate. 



