CROCODILUS. 3 
the sacred crocodile of the Nile led Cuvier to dissent from Geoffroy St.-Hilaire's 
opinion that the term suchus meant a distinct species, and to conclude that it was 
merely the name applied to individuals of the Nile crocodile set apart as sacred, and, 
as pointed out by Champollion 1 the younger, crow^o? is the very name of the crocodile 
God, Sebak or Souk. 
Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, during his twenty-three days' residence at Thebes, now close 
on a century ago, chiefly occupied himself in searching for and preserving as many 
mummies of animals as he could find, and skeletons of those species still living in 
Egypt, his object being, by a comparison of the mummified and recent skeletons, to 
throw, if possible, some light on a question much debated in his day, viz. whether 
species degenerate, or acquire characters in perpetuity, in a country like Egypt that has 
been the subject of great physical changes ; but he does not appear to have arrived at 
any definite results on this interesting question taken as a whole. 
The skull of a mummified crocodile obtained by him at Thebes appeared, however, 
to him to differ from the skull of a recent Nile crocodile in being narrower and more 
elongate, in the cheek-bones being proportionally further apart, and in the openings of 
the orbital cavities being much wider. These differences he considered indicated a 
distinct species ; and he states that a fisherman at Luxor told him that there were three 
species of crocodile in the Nile, viz. one coloured green, another brownish red, and 
a third black. The novelty, however, of his surroundings in the Thebaid and the 
fascination of its monuments so interrupted Geoffroy's zoological work, that he was 
unable, he tells us, to verify this statement made by the fisherman ; but every one 
who has had to deal with ignorant fishermen knows how little, if any, reliance can be 
placed on their judgment in such matters. Geoffroy says that he would not have 
ventured to establish the species merely on a mummy's skull, as he was aware that the 
difference he observed might ultimately prove to be individual or characteristic of a 
particular age. He had, however, another skull exactly like that of the mummy, and 
he had, moreover, observed another similarly shaped skull in what he calls " our 
collections." 
Geoffroy was well aware of the remarkable changes that take place in the form of 
the skulls of crocodiles as they increase in age, and was thus quite alive to the danger 
attending the selection of the relative length of the skull to the body as a specific 
distinction, but at the same time he does not appear to have recognized them in their 
full extent. In the semi-adult condition the lower jaw partakes of the elongated form 
of the anterior part of the skull, but in mature age it assumes a massive character 
in keeping with the rest of the skull. In the skull of the type of G. suchus, which 
only measured 95 millim. in length, the lower jaw was long and slender, in keeping 
with its youth. Geoffroy, however, held that this supposed species did not exceed 5 ft. 
1 Pantheon JEgyptien. Paris, 1823-5. 4to. No. 22. 
B2 
