OF EECENT CEOCODILIANS. 145 



** The legs with an indented fringe of short, narrow scales. Toes short, 

 nearly free. American Crocodiles. 



3. Palinia. 

 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 premaxillaiy ; 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. Palinu bhombifera. (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, Heruand. Nov. Mexic. ii. 2. 



Crocodilus rhombifer, Cmder, Ann. Mus. H. N. x. 51 ; Oss. Foss. v. 51, t. 3. f. 1-4. Tiedem., Oppel, & 

 Leboscli,Nat.Amph.75,t.lO. Gray,Syn.Rept.59. Bum. &Bibr.Erp.Gen.iii.97. Sagra,Cuba, 

 t. 4! Huxley, Proc. Linn. Soc. iv. 10. Blainv. Osteog. Croc. 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. Gen. des Sci. Phys. de Bordeaux, ii. 348. Gray, Syn. Rept. 59. 

 Crocodilm gravesii, Bory de St. Vincent, Diet. Class. H. N. iii. 109, t. Dum. & Bibr. Erp. Gen. iii. 101 . 



Hah. South America, Cuba {W. S. Macleay, Eamon de la Sagra). 



In the British Museum there is a well-grown specimen, 5 feet 4 mches 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 entu-e state ; and the other, a very mutilated skin, 

 in the Museum, which also furnished him with the skull figured in t. 3. £ 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 describesvand figures as coming from New Spain, under 

 the name of Aqicez palin, belongs to this species. 



M. Graves, in the ' Annales Generales des Sciences Physiques de Bordeaux,' describes 

 a Crocodile under the name of C. j)lanirostris, from a specimen which was formerly in 

 the Collection of the Academy of Bordeaux, but is now in the Museum of that town. It 

 was procured from M. Journee, 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 



