OF RECENT CROCODILIANS. 145 
** The legs with an indented fringe of short, narrow scales. Toes short, 
nearly free, American Crocodiles. 
3. PA.inta. 
The face oblong; forehead very convex, with a ridge in front of each orbit, con- 
verging in front and forming a lozenge-shaped space. Nuchal plates two or four, 
unequal. Cervical disk rhombic, of six large plates. Dorsal plates large, broad, in 
six series; the vertebral series nearly smooth, the lateral one strongly keeled. The 
intermaxillary short, truncated behind the premaxillary ; suture straight, transverse.— 
See Cuvier, Oss. Foss. iii. 72, t. 3. f. 1-5. 
Palinia, Gray, Cat. Tortoises & Crocodiles, B. M. 1844; Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 3rd series, x. 270. 
1. PALINIA RHOMBIFERA, (Cuban Palinia.) 
The upper surface of the forearms and thighs covered with convex keeled scales; 
the outer edge of the legs and feet with a series of very elongate scarcely raised scales, 
forming only a slight fringe. ‘The toes short, scarcely webbed. 
Aquez palin, Hernand. Noy. Mexie. ii. 2. 
Crocodilus rhombifer, Cuvier, Ann. Mus. H. N. x.51; Oss. Foss. v. 51, t. 3. f. 1-4. Tiedem., Oppel, & 
Lebosch, Nat.Amph.75,t.10. Gray,Syn.Rept.59. Dum. & Bibr.Erp.Gén.iii.97. Sagra,Cuba, 
t.4! Huxley, Proc. Linn. Soe. iv.10. Blainy. Ostéog. Croce. t. 5. f. 3 (head?) (not Owen). 
Crocodilus (Palinia) rhombifer, Gray, Cat. Tort. Croc. B. M. 63; Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. x. 270. 
Crocodilus planirostris, Graves, Ann, Gén. des Sci. Phys. de Bordeaux, 11.348. Gray, Syn. Rept. 59. 
Crocodilus gravesii, Bory de St. Vincent, Dict. Class. H. N. iii. 109, t. Dum. & Bibr. Erp. Gén. iii. 101. 
Hab. South America, Cuba (W. 8. Macleay, Ramon de la Sagra). 
In the British Museum there is a well-grown specimen, 5 feet 4 inches long, of this 
species, collected in Cuba by M. Ramon de la Sagra, and sent from the French Museum. 
Two young specimens in spirits, sent from Cuba by Mr. W. S. Macleay, are almost 
2 feet long, are pale brown, with small dots on the head, and a dark spot on the middle of 
many of the dorsal scutella; the face is irregularly tessellated with square brown spots. 
Cuvier described the Crocodilus rhombifer from two specimens :—one in the Cabinet of 
the Academy of Sciences, in a nearly entire state ; and the other, a very mutilated skin, 
in the Museum, which also furnished him with the skull figured in t. 3. f£. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 
of his work on Fossil Bones, pp. 51-70. The original habitats of these specimens 
were not marked. But M. Ramon de la Sagra sent a young living specimen to the 
Jardin des Plantes, proving that this is an American species; and it is probable that 
the Crocodile which Hernandez describes.and figures as coming from New Spain, under 
the name of Aguez-palin, belongs to this species. 
M. Graves, in the ‘ Annales Générales des Sciences Physiques de Bordeaux,’ describes 
a Crocodile under the name of C. planirostris, from a specimen which was formerly in 
the Colléction of the Academy of Bordeaux, but is now in the Museum of that town. It 
was procured from M. Journée, a surgeon of a ship that for some time traded with the 
negroes of the coast of Congo. M. Bory de St. Vincent for these reasons thought it might 
