FOSSIL REPTILES. 191 



The Baron is very much in doubt whether these two be 

 merely varieties or distinct species. The crocodile of St. 

 Domingo differs little more from that of the Nile than they 

 do from each other. The country of the second is not de- 

 termined, and a difference of continent would strengthen the 

 supposition of a distinction of species. Seba, who has evi- 

 dently figured the last one we have described, makes it an 

 animal of Ceylon ; but as the Baron observes, there is no more 

 dependence to be placed on this assertion than on many other 

 erroneous ones made by the same author relative to the origin 

 of the specimens in his collection. One, however, of the 

 individuals, on which the Baron founds the variety, was ticketted 

 thus, in the Paris Museum, the letters being half effaced — 

 Krokodile noir du Niger^ which is the orthography and hand- 

 writing of M. Adanson. This naturalist tells, in his Voyage, 

 that there are two crocodiles in Senegal, and M. de Beauvois 

 says that there have been seen in Guinea a crocodile and a 

 caiman. But an embarrassment still remains, for Adanson 

 says that his black crocodile has a more elongated muzzle 

 than the green. Now the latter is the crocodile of the Nile, 

 and it happens unluckily that the variety of which we are now 

 treating has the muzzle much shorter than that of the Egyptian 

 species. The Baron therefore leaves these two animals we 

 have described, provisionally, as varieties, giving to the latter 

 the epithet trigonatus, which M. Schneider appears originally 

 to have bestowed upon it. 



The difficulty with the sub-genus of the Crocodile is of a 

 different nature from that which is attached to the investigation 

 of the caymans. The species most easily authenticated re- 

 semble each other infinitely more. In the numerous varieties 

 of age and sex, of which multifarious specimens have arrived 

 in Europe, so many various shades, yet graduating towards 

 each other, have been found, that it is impossible for a 

 naturalist to know where to stop in their determination. 



The Common Crocodile of the Nile (Crocodilus vulgaris 



