OF EECENT CHOCODILIANS. 159 



Museum of the College of Surgeons a dried specimen of a Crocodile." This he 

 describes and figures under the name of " Crocodile a nuque cuirassee " {Crocodilus 

 cataflir actus, nob.). 



In 1834 Mr. Edward Turner Bennett (Proc. Zool. Soc. ii. p. 10) gave a notice of a 

 specimen of Crocodilus cataphractus of Cuvier being alive in the gardens of this Society. 

 At the meeting of the Society on the 22nd September, 1835 (Proc. Zool. Soc. iii. p. 129), 

 after the animal had died, on more close examination, he described this animal as a new 

 species, under the name of Crocodilus leptorhynclms \ and Mr. Martin added some notes 

 on its internal anatomy. 



It is to be observed that Mr. Bennett and I were misled on this occasion by the 

 erroneous breadth given to the animal in the figure published by Cuvier ; for he speaks 

 of the length of the head "being to its breadth as 3 to 1," instead of as 1\ to 1. 



In my Catalogue of the Tortoises, Crocodiles, and Amphibians in the Collection of 

 the British Museum, published in 1844, I formed a genus under the name Mecisiops 

 for this animal, and for the first time described a full-grown specimen of it which we 

 had received from the Gambia as M. hennetti ; for Mr. Rendal considered it distinct 

 from Cuvier's animal, but observed that they might be varieties. 



This might all liave been avoided if we could have seen the original specimen ; but 

 when I inquired for it, it could not be found. 



The specimen described and figured by Cuvier is fortunately now to be seen in the 

 Museum of the College of Surgeons, referred to under No. 710 in the Catalogue of 

 Osteological Specimens of that collection. It is a young dried specimen of the Crocodile 

 which is now so frequently brought from the west coast of Africa, and it affords no 

 ground for the supposition of M. Dumeril, expressed in his paper " On the EeptUes of 

 Western Africa " (Arch, du Mus. v. 252), that these may be distinct species ; and it 

 shows that the figure of Cuvier, though characteristic, is not very carefully drawn, and 

 that any diflerence that may appear results from the want of accuracy in the figure, and 

 is not to be found in the animal itself, — supporting the opinion that I expressed in my 

 paper in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' 3rd series, x. p. 274. 



M. Auguste Dumeril, in his paper " On the Reptiles of Western Africa " (Archiv. du 

 Mus. X. 271), gives a good figure of a half-grown specimen of this species under the 

 name of Crocodilus leptorhynchus, 1. 14, and places by the side of it a tracing of Cuvier's 

 figure of Crocodilus cataphractus, to show that they cannot be alike; but the 



entertainment. During the dinner the news arrived that the Orleans party had succeeded ; he and his step- 

 daughter, Miss Duvauoel (who was in the gallery with some ladies), immediately displayed the national 

 colours. Cuvier's political predilections were not strong ; for he had held office under Napoleon and under the 

 Bourbons, and he made no secret that he came provided so as to acknowledge the success of either party : 

 he had a white and a tricolour cockade in his hat ready to show as the occasion reijuired. "WTien I visited 

 him in after times, he more than once referred to the events of his visits. 



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