CROCODILES. 



353 



This fossil is water-worn, and some of the projecting bones, 

 especially of the sphenoid, are mutilated at the extremities ; 

 but the general character of the head and the form and 

 position of the foramina, &c., appear to correspond com- 

 pletely with those of the existing Gharial.^ 



There is no approach to any of the peculiarities pointed 

 out by Cuvier in the Caen and other fossils. On the upper 

 surface we have, in the frontal, the same concavity between 

 the orbits ; the same form of the crotaphite foramina, with 

 the parietal surface between them of the same comparative 

 width ; the posterior frontal separating the orbit from the 

 crotaphite foramina corresponds ; the form of the mastoid 

 bones, both in themselves and at their articulation with the 

 apophysis of the os tympani, strictly agree with the existing 

 Gharial of the present rivers. The same may be said of the 

 lateral and lower faces, in the external widening out of the 

 pterygoid apophyses in the situation of the hinder nasal 

 fossa, in the elevation of the orbital edge of the frontal, with 

 the deep emargination, in the form and proportions of the 

 jugal, and the temporal fossa, and in the sharp elongated 

 internal process of the squamous bone : the form of the 

 palatine holes, and the relative situation of the teeth to these 

 holes, are also points which agree with the living animal ! 



The animal to which this fossil belonged was not quite 

 20 feet long ; the complete head, from the tip of the muzzle 

 to the posterior margin of the occipital condyle, being about 

 47 inches. The measurements which I have made of the 

 existing Gharial show the proportion of the head to the length 

 of the animal as 1 to 5^. 



The following measurements of another fragment, con- 

 sisting of the anterior extremity of the beak or muzzle of the 

 upper jaw, wiU still further go to establish the resemblance.^ 



The above is the remain of a smaller animal than the 



i > Brit. Mus. Cat., No. 40,206.— [Ed.] « Brit. Mus. Cat., No. 39,811.— [Ed.] 



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