104 CLASS REPTILIA. 



zle ; it is found in many islands of the Indian seas, 

 and probably also in the two peninsulas. It has been 

 principally received from the Sechelles Islands. 



The slender-muzzled Crocodile. (Croc. Acutus. Cuv.) 

 GeoiFr. Ann. Mus. II. xxxvii. 



With a longer muzzle, gibbous at the base, and the 

 back-plates arranged in four lines : the external ones 

 are disposed irregularly, and have more projecting 

 ridges. This species is of St. Domingo and the other 

 great Antilles. The female places her eggs in the 



and Aristotle that the crocodiles venerated in Egypt were not less fero- 

 cious than others. It is also certain that the crocodile with narrow muzzle 

 was not tended exclusively by the priests; for, according to the very 

 accurate researches of M. GeofFroy himseF, it is ascertained that the three 

 embalmed crocodiles now in Paris are, none of them, the suckus, but the 

 marginatus, lacunosus, and complanatus. Finally, every thing leads me to 

 suppose, that Souc, or Souchis, which, according to M. Champollion, was 

 the Egypt an name of Saturn, was also the proper name of the crocodile 

 which was kept at Arsinoe — as Apis was the name of the sacred ox at 

 Memphis, and Mnevis that of the ox of Hermopolis. 



On this point of antiquity, the different writings of M. Geoffroy may be 

 consulted, and h s recapitulation of them all in his great work, on 

 Egypt, as well as my " Researches on the Fossil Bones," tom. v., 2d part, 

 p. 45, This last article having been written previously to M. GeofFroy's 

 recapitulation of his own papers in the work on Egypt, I could not then 

 employ the argument derived from the embalmed crocodiles with which 

 M. Geoffroy himself has furnished me, and which I deem a singular corro- 

 boration of my views of the subject. — Cuvier. 



*** We do not deem ourselves at liberty to omit any of our author's 

 valuable notes on the text ; but much in them relating to fossils, and to 

 the comparison with living species, will be found in our own compilation 

 on the same subject. — Ed. 



