SAURIA. 15 



Crocodiles,(1) properly so called. 



Have an oblong and depressed muzzle, unequal teeth, the fourth 

 ones below passing into notches, and not into holes of the upper 

 jaw, and all the remaining characters of the preceding subgenus. 

 They are found in both continents. 



Lac. crocodilus^ L.; Crocodile du Nil, GeofFr. Descr. de I'E- 

 gypte, Rep. II, 1; Ann. Mus. X, iii, Ij Cuv. lb. X, pi. 1, f. 5 

 and 11, f. 7, and Oss. foss. V, part 2, same plate and figure 

 (The Crocodile of the Nile), so celebrated among the ancients, 

 has six rows of square and nearly equal plates along the whole 

 length of the back.(2) 



peculiar species, described by Soemmering in the Mem. of the Acad, of Munich, of 

 1814. 



I have described the crania and other parts of fossil Crocodiles allied to the 

 Gavials found at Caen, Honfleur and other places, and marked those points in 

 which the osteology of their cranium differs from that of the Gavial now in exist- 

 ence. See Oss. foss. V, pai't 2. Similar observations have also been made in 

 England by M. Conybeare. In consequence of these differences, which all relate 

 to the hind part of the palate, M. Geoffroy has thought proper to form two genera 

 of these lost animals, which he calls Theleosauhus and STETfEosAURFs, notwith- 

 standing which, he appears to think they may be the stock of the present Gavials, 

 and that the said differences may have resulted from atmospheric changes. Mem. 

 du Mus., XII. 



(1) Kfc>co<fitxoc, which fears the shore, a name given by the Greeks to a common 

 Lizard of their country; they afterwards, in their travels through Egypt, applied 

 it to the Crocodile from the mutual resemblance. Herodot. Lib. II. Merrem has 

 changed the name of this subgenus to that of Champses, which, according to ' 

 Herodotus, was the Egj'ptlan name of this animal. 



(2) From the Senegal to the Ganges, and beyond it, we find Crocodiles very 

 similar to the common one, some of which have a rather longer and narrower 

 muzzle, and others, a difference in the plates or scales which cover the top of 

 their neck; but it is very difficult to arrange them as distinct species, on account 

 of their intermediate gradations. The small insulated scales which form a trans- 

 verse row immediately behind the cranium, vary from two, to four and six; the 

 approximated scales which compose the shield of the neck are generally six in 

 number, but sometimes there is a smaller one at but little distance from each of 

 the anterior angles of this shield, and at others it is contiguous to it, in which 

 case it (the shield) consists of eight plates or scales. M. Geoffroy calls those 

 which have a longer and narrower muzzle. Croc, suchus,- those whose row of scales 

 behind the cranium consists of six pieces, Croc, marginatus., among which some 

 have six plates in the shield, and others eight; Croc, lacunosus, an individual spe- 

 cimen which only presented two scales behind the cranium, and six plates in the 

 shield; and, finally, another specimen whose characters are referable to some 

 proportions of the head. Croc, complanatus. 



These various Crocodiles also differ in some of the details of the form of the 

 muzzle, and in the lateral scales of the back, but as regards this, and the muzzle 

 particularly, the varieties are still more numerous, and M. Geoffroy acknowledges 

 that nothing is more fugitive than the forms of Crocodiles. This is so much the case, 



