244 FOSSIL REPTILES. 



means of these re-constructed a considerable portion of the 

 head, containing all the occiput, the greatest portion of the 

 upper face, and of the sides as far as the muzzle. He also 

 got three fragments which had appertained to one and the 

 same muzzle, united them as they had been in nature, and 

 joining them to the partial cranium which he had already 

 formed, he found the muzzle so well adapted to the cranium, 

 that he had no doubt of its having originally belonged to it, and 

 that the nine fragments were from one and the same head. 

 At all events, it was quite certain, that even if the muzzle did 

 not belong to the head in question, \t belonged to an individual 

 of the same species and of the same size, which was fully suffi- 

 cient for all purposes of determination. 



In the mutilated state, this head was two-and-thirty inches 

 in length, and allowing four inches for the end of the muzzle 

 which was wanting, it must have been three feet long. The 

 largest head of gavial in the Baron's possession was but thirty- 

 one inches. But this is the least difference existing between 

 the two species. The muzzle of the gavial is both wider in 

 proportion and in actual measurement ; and the excess of width 

 is still more marked in the occiput. The cranium of the fossil 

 has an oblong form, quite different from that of the gavial, and 

 unites itself to the muzzle by an insensible narrowing, and not 

 by a sudden contraction. 



The occiput of the gavial is limited above by a horizontal 

 right line. In the fossil it is an angular line, whose middle 

 projecting angle corresponds to the sagittal crest. 



The crotaphite foramina of the fossil are much wider and 

 very considerably longer than those of the gavial. Their figure 

 is elliptical, and their grand diameter longitudinal. They in- 

 tercept a long and narrow sagittal crest, and not a short and 

 flat parietal surface, as in the gavial. The arch which is 

 formed by the posterior frontal and the mastoid, which limits 

 the crotaphite foramen below, is not straight as in the gavial, 

 but forms a convexity externally. 



