CEOCODILUS. 5 
Thebaic! that there were more than one species of crocodile in the Nile, Cuvier held 
that, if not a species, at least it was possibly a variety ; but he hesitated to give a 
decided opinion, because before doing so he wished to follow it in its different ages. 
There is no evidence, however, that the sexes of the specimens referred to the variety 
had been determined ; and as Cuvier makes no mention of the differences in the shape 
of the head of the male and female crocodile, it is possible, nay probable, that the 
specimens with the narrower and more elongated heads were females. At the same 
time, a variety of the common crocodile may exist, but no material that has as yet come 
under my observation seems to sanction such a supposition. Sir J. G. Wilkinson l , on 
the other hand, held that there were two species, but the specimens presented by him 
to the British Museum certainly represent only one. The information he recorded 
regarding them is so meagre as to be worthless in a question of this kind. He says, 
" though the scales serve to indicate the two species known in the Nile, they differ 
very little in their position ; and the black and green colour of the two crocodiles is a 
more evident distinction." 
Sir Samuel Baker 2 is also very explicit regarding the existence of two kinds of 
crocodiles. He says : " I have noticed two species of crocodiles throughout all the 
rivers of Abyssinia and in the White Nile. One of these is of a dark brown colour, 
and much shorter and thicker in proportion than the other, which grows to an immense 
length, and is generally of a pale greenish yellow. The Arabs assert that the dark- 
coloured thick-bodied species is more dreaded than the other." Unfortunately neither 
Wilkinson nor Baker were trained naturalists, so that their opinion on this question 
does not carry much weight, and, moreover, the bare statement that two exist throws 
no light on the question whether C. suckus, Geoffroy, is in reality a species. 
Subsequently Geoffroy 3 figured the skull of the type of C. suchus, natural size. The 
drawing represents a skull 95 millim. in length. A crocodile in the British Museum, 
having a skull of similar dimensions, has a total length from the tip of the snout to the 
extremity of the tail of 678 millim. ; so that the type of C. suchus was probably about 
the same size, for, as pointed out by Geoffroy, the length of a crocodile skull is \ of the 
total length of the animal. At such an early age it is impossible to determine the sex 
of a crocodile by the characters of the cranium ; and as the type was a mummy, we are 
in complete ignorance on this point. 
We obtain some further information regarding the materials which served Geoffroy 
St.-Hilaire for the establishment of the species in the account given of it in the 
' Description de l'Egypte,' which he tells us was written 20 years after his memoir 
had appeared in the ' Annales du Museum,' published in 1807. In the former work 
1 Eawlinson's Herod, ii. p. 115; Genl. View of Egypt, 1835, p. 225, note; The Ancient Egyptians, ii. 
1878, p. 133. 
2 The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia, 1867, p. 96. 
3 Ann. Mus. x. 1807, pi. iii. figs. 1 to 4. 
