ORDER CROCODILIA. 



ISI 



The cervical vertebrae have double pedunculate costal tubercles, 

 situated one on the centrum and the other on the arch ; and the 

 cervical ribs have long processes projecting anteriorly and pos- 

 teriorly, which completely prevent the head from being turned 

 sideways. In the dorsal region usually the four anterior vertebrae 

 have the transverse process for the articulation of the tubercle of 

 the rib placed on the arch, while there is a lower process, or rib- 

 facet, on the centrum for the capitulum of the rib ; but posteriorly 

 this rib-facet rises on to the arch, and in the middle dorsals forms 

 a kind of " step " on the transverse process, while still more pos- 

 teriorly it merges with the tubercular facet. The dorsal ribs have 

 uncinate processes, like those of Birds ; and the chevron-bones of 

 the caudal region usually have the upper limbs of the Y not united 



Fig. 1080. — Oblique left lateral and superior view of the skull of Crocodilus palustris ; India. 

 Much reduced. The small paired apertures to the right are the supratemporal fossae, in ad- 

 vance of which are the orbits communicating posteriorly with the infratemporal fossae. 



by bone. Normally the sacrum has but two vertebrae. 1 The skull 

 (fig. 1080) is relatively large in proportion to the body, and is 

 usually much depressed ; its component bones are firmly united, 

 and generally have a characteristic sculpture on their external 

 surface. The palatines and pterygoids unite in the middle line, 

 and thus close the palate ; and very frequently one or both of these 

 paired bones develop inferior plates, which meet beneath the narial 

 passages (fig. 1089). The quadrate is tightly wedged in among 

 the adjacent bones ; the tympanic cavities usually communicate with 

 the mouth by three eustachian canals ; the mandibular symphysis 

 unites by suture ; and there are generally no ossifications in the 

 sclerotic of the eyeball. There is almost invariably a lateral vacuity 

 in the mandible (fig. 1093). The teeth are always either pointed 



1 As an abnormality three sacrals may be present. 



