ORDER SAURIA. 201 



bably some of the neighbouring rivers, such as the Buram- 

 pooter. It feeds only on fish, and though it arrives to a 

 gigantic size, is not dangerous to man. 



M. de Lacepede observed in the collection of the Museum 

 of Natural History in Paris, a portion of the jaw of a gavial 

 of the East Indies, which must have been thirty feet ten 

 inches in length, and whose dimensions were therefore con- 

 siderably beyond the ordinary standard of these animals. 



The same naturalist believes that it is to this species we 

 must refer the crocodiles seen on the banks of the Ganges, 

 by Tavernier, from Tontipour as far as the town of Acerat. 

 But this great Asiatic river is also inhabited by a prodigious 

 quantity of common crocodiles, a fact, which as our author 

 has noticed, was not unknown to the ancients, and which 

 has been verified by M. Fichtel, a skilful naturalist attached 

 to the Museum of the Emperor of Austria. 



As for the Little Gavial ( Teniiirostris), we neither know to 

 what size it may arrive, nor what country it inhabits, though 

 it is suspected that it belongs to Africa. 



These two reptiles have been very well figured by M. 

 Faujas de St. Fond in his History of the Mountain of St. 

 Pierre, pi. 46 and 48. 



We now come to the great family of the Lacertiams, 

 which we shall treat of in detail, though as briefly as pos- 

 sible, confining ourselves to points of popular interest. We 

 begin with the Monitors proper, sometimes, but errone- 

 ously, called Tupinambis. These are easily to be distin- 

 guished from the crocodiles, which have the hinder feet 

 palmated ; from the dragons, which have angular plates upon 

 the head ; from the safe-guards, which have denticulated or 

 serrated teeth ; from the lizards and ameivas, which have the 

 tail round ; from the lophyri and basilisks, which have a crest 

 upon the back ; and in short from all the other saurian reptiles. 



Until the expedition of the French into Egypt, Hassel- 



