CROCODILIA. 335 



Iii one from Jamaica, sent me by Mr. Home 1 , which measured 1 foot 

 6 inches from the back part of the head to the giving off of the hind- 

 legs, and measured from the nose to the tip of the tail 4 feet 6 inches, 

 the trachea was bent as above described. It had a narrow nose, but 

 rising and round where the nostrils opened, and his two fore-teeth of 

 the lower jaw came through. 



In another of nearly the same size, which I had from Mr. Bailey the 

 bird-man, the trachea divided pretty high, a good way above the heart, 

 but had not this bend, excepting that, after it had divided, the two took 

 a gentle turn to the right instead of the left 2 . 



The crocodile comes nearest to the fowl in the structure of its internal 

 parts, of any animal that I know : it is the nearest of any of this class. 

 The trachea is similar, and has some of the variations. Both birds and 

 crocodiles have two glands on the upper part of the thorax, and some 

 flat scattered ones near the same place, which are thyroidal glands. 

 The communication of the veins of the stomach, &c, with those of the 

 liver, and the vein of the rectum, joining or entering into the vena 

 portaruin, is similar to the bird, although it is much more considerable 

 [in the crocodile]. 



The adhesion of the stomach to the peritoneum is somewhat similar : 

 the stomach itself is of the gizzard kind, and the folds of the duodenum 

 are also something similar. 



' show ' for several years in London before it died. It was at the time of its death, 

 perhaps, the largest ever seen in this country, having grown to my knowledge 

 above 3 feet in length, and was above 5 feet long when it died. I sent to Mr. 

 Hewson, and before I opened it, I read over to him my former descriptions of the 

 dissections of this animal, relative to the ' absorbing system,' both of some of the 

 larger lymphatics and of the lacteals, with a view to see how far these descriptions 

 would agree with the appearances in the animal now before us, and on comparing 

 them they exactly corresponded. This was the crocodile from which Mr. Hewson 

 took his observation of the colour of the chyle (Phil. Trans. 1769, p. 199) [four 

 years after, when Mr. Hewson writes, " I lately saw by favour of Mr. John Hunter," 

 &c.]. The intention of my showing this crocodile, and also reading my former 

 dissections to Mr. Hewson was, that he might see that I had a tolerable description 

 of this system in the Amphibia ; because I found him busy in the pursuit of this 

 system in various animals, and hinting himself to be the discoverer of it even in 

 birds, and to convince him that this description must have been written some con- 

 siderable time before, in all probability before my going abroad. As crocodiles are 

 seldom to be had in this country, I could hardly have dissected two crocodiles, 

 besides this, between May 1763 (the time I returned from Portugal), or the autumn 

 1763, when the turtle was dissected, and the beginning of the winter 1764-5. Mr. 

 Hewson at the time appeared satisfied, or at least made no remarks. 



1 [The brother-in-law of John Hunter, afterwards Sir Everard Home, Bart.] 



2 [In a small Croc, acutus the trachea made a sudden turn just above the pericar- 

 dium, from the left to the right of the oesophagus, passing sternad, and then divided.] 



