6 THE EEPTILES OF EGYPT. 
we are informed that a specimen in the Paris Museum measured 1 m. 280 millim. 
long, and that it had been brought by Adanson from Senegal, and that it bore in his 
handwriting " Crocodile du vert," and that a second specimen 1 m. 190 millim. long 
also existed in the same museum. This specimen was undoubtedly from the Nile, 
and had been presented to the Paris Museum by the son of M. Thedenat-Duvant, 
Vice-Consul at Alexandria. The small size of the crocodiles suggests that they were 
young; but Geoffroy held that they were adult ; and in support of this he reverts to a 
passage of his in the ' Annales du Museum ' of 1807, in which he stated that he believed 
that C. suchus attained only to about five feet in length, being led to that conclusion 
by a skull nine inches long, which he says had its sutures nearly effaced, a condition 
which Geoffroy states generally takes place only in adult crocodiles and at a certain 
age. He quoted the passage in question, as the specimen itself was no longer at his 
disposal. 
In the British Museum there is a mummified crocodile, about 15 feet long, from 
Kom Ombos, one of the seats of its worship ; and the recent researches of Professor 
Petrie l in the Labyrinth in the Fayum have brought to light mummified crocodiles, 
varying from infants up to 15 feet in length ; and the occurrence in other parts of 
Egypt of mummies of similar dimensions conclusively proves that the ancient 
Egyptians made no distinction between small and large crocodiles, and that all were 
equally sacred to them. This disposes of Geoffroy St.-Hilaire's contention that the 
sacred crocodile did not attain to a greater length than five feet. 
With regard to the supposed obliteration of the sutures of the foregoing skull, it is 
important to bear in mind that the condition was abnormal, if anchylosis of the sutures 
was in reality present, because persistence of the sutures of both skull and skeleton 
throughout life is the normal condition not only among the Emydosauria, but among 
the Reptilia generally, and that the sutures are more markedly visible in the adult 
than in the young and half-grown individuals. 
Professor Owen 2 , in 1850, figured the skull 3 of a mummified crocodile from Egypt, 
under the name of C. suchus, but he truly says " there is no good specific character 
which distinguishes them (the mummified crocodiles) from the modern crocodile of 
the Nile." 
Professor Huxley 4 , in 1860, in his description of the premaxillo-maxillary suture of 
the Nile crocodile, pointed out that the whole suture has the form of a W, and that it 
runs backwards from the canine groove as far as the level of the middle of the alveolus 
of the second tooth behind the groove (or that of the seventh tooth), whereas in the 
1 Hawara, Biahmu, and Arsinoe, 18S9, p. 10. 
- Palajoutogr. Soc. 1850, Monograph Foss. Kept. Lond. Clay, pt. ii. p. 29, pi. i. fig. 2. 
■' 1 have not succeeded in tracing the skull. It is neither in the Koyal College of Surgeons Museum nor 
in the British Museum. 
1 Journ. of Proc. Linn. Soc, Zool. iv. 1S60, p. S & 15. 
