SCHLEOtEL s gavial. 6 



sink beneath the surface, and nothing but a small portion of the 

 nose remains ; on a nearer approach this also quietly disappears. 

 This doubtless accounts for the fact that the animal is so very 

 rarely seen. 



'* The irides are yellowish brown and the pupils vertical. 

 The upper surface is pale, dull olive -green, finely and closely 

 spotted with dark brown. The ground colovir becomes lighter 

 on the sides, and is nearly white beneath. The tail has six dark 

 bands, formed by the spotting of the scales on the sides and lower 

 surface with dark brown. In the living animal the upper jaw 

 projects nearly an inch beyond the under jaw. 



" It is possibly referable to Tomistoma schlegeli, the Bornean 

 Gavial, but the very meagre description of that species in my 

 possession is insufficient to identify it." 



The specimen sent by Mr. Wray has been stuffed, and is 

 now exhibited in the Reptile Gallery of the Natural History 

 Museum. As the bones were sent with the skin, I am able to 

 add some remarks on the osteological characters, of which we 

 know nothing, except of the skull, which has been well de- 

 scribed and figured. 



There are 24 praesacral, 2 sacral, and 35 caudal vertebree. 

 The hypapophyses on the cervical and anterior thoracic vertebrae 

 are less developed than in the other recent Crocodilians, and are 

 not directed forwards ; they are not developed beyond the 

 eleventh vertebrae (twelfth or thirteenth in the others). The 

 chevron - bones are all open dorsally. The first pair of ribs are 

 inserted on the sides of the proatlanto - atlantic hyjiapophysis, or 

 lower part of the atlas -ring, and separated from each other at 

 the base by a wide interspace. The second rib differs from that 

 of all Crocodilians I have hitherto examined (including the 

 Gavial, of which I have examined the bone on a young specimen 

 in spirit, and also the atlas and axis preserved in the Mviseuni of 

 the Royal College of Surgeons, — the Gavial- skeleton still being 

 a desideratum in the British Museum collection), Osteolcemns 

 excepted; it is attached to the centrum of the atlas (odontoid 

 bone), near its suture with the axis, by the capitulum only, the 

 tuberculum being merely indicated by a small ujjward process at 

 a distance from the base of the bone, and without any connection 

 with the vertebrae. 



It is well known that in Ichthyosaurus the atlas bears a 

 forked rib, the same as the axis and the other vertebrae behind 

 it. It seems that one Crocodilian at least presents an approx- 

 imating feature. The late Mr. Hulke has first pointed out in 



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