156 DR. J. E. GRAY’S SYNOPSIS OF THE SPECIES 
A Caiman, in some of its characters, but which is nevertheless a true Crocodile, with 
the canines fitting into a notch, and not into a pit, in the upper jaw, is, there cannot 
be any doubt, the Crocodile that Adanson referred to; for it agrees with his descrip- 
tion in colour and in its ferocious habits. And further that it is the Crocodile that the 
French naturalists refer to, is proved by the fact, already recorded, that we have received 
from one of the persons employed by M. Duméril at the Paris Museum a skeleton 
of a young specimen of the Black Crocodile of West Africa as the skeleton of the 
American Alligator palpebrosus of Cuvier. 
** Face very long, slender; nasal not reaching to the nostril. Gavialian Crocodiles. 
7. Mecrstops. 
Face subcylindrical, scarcely dilated in the middle; orbits simple. Nuchal shields 
numerous, small, in two cross series. Cervical disk narrow, containing two or three 
pairs of plates. Dorsal plates small, all keeled, in six longitudinal series, lateral 
one narrowest. Intermaxillary produced behind, and embracing the front end of the 
nasal. 
Mecistops, Gray, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 3rd series, x. 273; Cat. Tortoises & Crocodiles B. M. 58. 
Huxley, Proc. Linn. Soe. ivy. 15, 1859. 
This genus has some resemblance to the Gavials; but the structure of the skull and 
the position of the teeth are those of a true Crocodile. 
Professor Owen observes, “There is, however, a very close resemblance in the elon- 
gate, slender proportion of the skull and the elongated festooned border of the jaws 
between this species and the Crocodilus schlegelii from Borneo.”—Loe. cit. p.158. The 
Crocodilus schlegelit is a Gavial. 
Dr. Falconer observes, ‘The nasal bones (in Mecistops) are extremely narrow and 
attenuated, but, as in the true Crocodiles, they descend between the maxillaries so as to 
project into a notch between the intermaxillaries. ‘The same holds good in C. schlegelii, 
where, as with Gavials, the nasal terminates a short way in front of the orbits, and does 
not enter into the formation of the anterior portion of the beak” (p. 363). ‘ This cha- 
racter is a good diagnostic mark between the Crocodile proper and the Gavials, 
separating C. schlegelii from the latter genuss under which Miiller ranged it” (p. 363). 
Dr. Balfour Baikie states, “In all essentials the skull of the Mecistops shows it is to 
be properly classed as a member of the family Crocodilide rather than the Gavialidie. 
The teeth are irregular, the sides of the jaw are not parallel; there is a distinct swelling 
opposite the ninth remaining upper molar; and the lower canines are received into 
notches in the upper jaw.’ —P. Z. S. 1857, p. 58. 
