54 TWO YEAES IN" THE JUISTGLE. 



des Plantes, Paris, there is a stiiffed Gavialis Gangeticus, 20 feet, T 

 inches long, but that animal when ahve was apparently an excep- 

 tionally slender one. The largest specimen in the British Museum 

 measures only 14 feet, 9 inches. 



My chief disappointment at failing to secure one of the three 

 monster gavials that we saw, was owing to the fact that these 

 individuals were the only ones that possessed the strange bony 

 knob at the end of the snout, which is peculiar to the largest speci- 

 mens of this species. I particularly desii-ed to examine it upon a 

 living specimen, for the manner of its growth, and its uses, are as 

 yet a puzzle to naturalists. It is the development of the inner edge 

 of the premaxillary bones into a lofty double knob of smooth bone, 

 nearly surrounding the external nostril. For my part, I believe it 

 to be a purely sexual characteristic, possessed only by those males 

 which have attained their full gi'owth, and reached an advanced 

 age. In my collection of twenty-six gavials, there were both males 

 and females of various sizes up to twelve feet, not one of which 

 showed the least sign of any unusual development of the premaxil- 

 laries. A skull which was kindly presented me by Mr. Palmer, of 

 Etawah, and which according to my calculations, belonged to an 

 animal thirteen feet in length, also showed no signs of the " boss " 

 upon the snout. 



The gavial, or "ghariyal" of the Hindoos (Gavialis Gangeticus, 

 Geoff.), stands at the head of the order Sauria (Crocodilians), which 

 includes the gavials of India and Borneo, the crocodiles of both the 

 old world and the new, the alligators and caimans of America only. 

 Generally speaking, the main points of difference between crocodiles 

 and alligators are as follows : a crocodile (of any species) is distin- 

 guished by a triangular head, of which the snout is the apex, a nar- 

 row muzzle, and canine teeth in the lower jaw which pass freely up- 

 ward in the notches in the side of the upper ; whereas an aUigator 

 (also caiman or jacare) has a broad flat muzzle, and the canine teeth 

 of the lower jav/ fit into sockets in the under surface of the upper jaw. 



The gavi.il has very slender and elongated jaws, with an ex- 

 panded end, quite hke the handle of a frying-pan, smooth and com- 

 pact, set "with twenty-seven teeth in each side of the upper jaw and 

 twenty-five in the lower. The lower large front teeth pass upward 

 entirely through two holes at the extremity of the snout, but all the 

 remaining teeth are wholly free upon the sides, slanting well out- 

 ward, and in young specimens they are so prominent and sharp that 

 it is unpleasant to grasp the muzzle in the naked hand. 



