334 REPTILIA. 



Parts of animals "whose direct uses are not known, and also consisting 

 of several parts whose peculiar offices are not in the least known from 

 any kind of construction that they have : when these parts are differently 

 arranged or disposed from the common [type], or that which we are 

 mostly acquainted with, it becomes very difficult to say what are the 

 parts in every variation. For instance, the brain of a turtle may have 

 all the parts that the human brain has ; but as these parts are differently 

 disposed, and of different shapes and sizes in proportion to the size of the 

 brain, it becomes very difficult to say what each part is that corresponds 

 with those of the human. 



Of the Disposition of the Digestive Organs in the Tricoilia. 



This class of animals, like every other that has a uniformity in the 

 disposition of the parts of which they are constructed, has their digestive 

 and the other organs relative to them, disposed on pretty much the 

 same principle. The beginning of the stomach is more on the left side 

 than in the middle, as it is in fish ; but, whether it passes down straight, 

 as in the snake, whose body is long, or goes across to the right, as in 

 the turtle, whose body is broad, the intestine arises from the right, the 

 stomach bending that way, so that the intestines may be said to arise 

 on the right. They are immediately attached to the right of the 

 mesentery, and pass along that membrane on its right edge, till they 

 form caecum, colon, or rectum, whichever they may have. 



[Order Crocodilia 1 .] 



Of the Crocodile. — There are two kinds, with regard to the trachea ; 

 in one it is nearly straight 2 , in the other it makes a bend upon itself 

 towards the left side of the thorax 3 ; and when it returns to the middle 

 between the right and the left, just above the heart, it then passes 

 down and divides into two. Some birds have a fold in the trachea 

 before it enters the thorax. 



All those [crocodiles] that I have examined that had not this fold 

 were young ones. The one \_Croc. acutus] which had this fold was a 

 large one, above 6 feet long, and is the one from which this description 

 was taken*. One with a broad mouth [Alligator Indus'] had it not. 



* In the beginning of the winter 1764-5, I got a crocodile which had been in a 



1 [The Hunterian osteological specimens of Crocodilia include parts of Gavialis 

 gangeticus, Nos. 682, 703, 708 ; Crocodilus acutus, Nos. 713 — 715 ; Croc, vulgaris, 

 ]Sos. 717, 718; Croc, biporcatus, Nos. 720, 723, 725, 731, 745, 754; Alligator lucius, 

 Nos. 701, 7<>3.] 



- [Alligator lucius,] 3 [Crocodilus acutus.] 



