CROCODILUS. 345 



The skin in some places, especially the tail, gives origin to muscles : 

 this is like the turtle, lobster, &c. The ribs have a great deal of motion. 

 The depressores costaram are very large muscles, and cover the whole 

 of the inside of the ribs, and what answer to the triangularis sterni 

 are also very strong. These circumstances may account for the want 

 of a diaphragm. 



The stomach was full of the leaves of vegetables : the intestines were 

 also full of them, but they were become indistinct, excepting that some 

 of them had the appearance of being dissected ; viz. the pulpy part was 

 destroyed, and the fibrous parts left. 



Although the crocodile is classed with the Amphibia and really comes 

 nearer [to that class] than to any other that I know of, it has not all 

 the same character, as has been observed. It comes nearer the bird 

 than any of the others, and therefore is a degree higher [than the other 

 Amphibia]. The brain, although it has the same parts [as in the 

 Amphibia], yet has them closer connected, and the skull is more in con- 

 tact with it 1 . 



Of the Construction of the Heart in the Fastus of the Crocodile. 



From the construction of the heart in the Amphibia, where the two 

 bloods meet in the ventricle, one would be inclinable to suppose there 

 would be no occasion for a foramen ovale or ductus arteriosus ; but in 

 the crocodile we have both. The foramen ovale is to be considered as 

 the first communication between the two bloods or circulations ; in the 

 crocodile it is large and free. The pulmonary artery, which arises from 

 the anterior part of the right ventricle, after going out, divides into two, 

 one going immediately to the lungs of the left side, while the other 

 passes behind the different aortas, and passes to the lungs of the right 

 side, from which passes down a branch which joins the left aorta, which 

 forms the ductus arteriosus. What this is to answer one can hardly 

 conceive, as it would appear that the same purpose could have been 

 answered by the adult construction ; but it becomes a kind of proof that 

 the two bloods are kept much more distinct in the adult than what we 

 should have imagined, from the communications between the two 

 ventricles 2 . 



1 [Hunt. Preps. Phys. Series, Nos. 1315—1318, 1348. The spinal chord is shown 

 in No. 1349.] 



2 [The following are my notes made on dissecting the heart of the Alligator lucius 

 and Crocodilus acutus, at the Gardens of the Zoological Society hi 1831 and 1834: — 



" Laid open the left ventricle of the Alligator lucius ; traced the small depressions 

 near the base of the ventricle which lead to sinuses extending towards the right, but 

 which divide and are lost in the septum, without penetrating the cavity of the right 

 ventricle. The same with respect to the sinuses at the apex, where some small com- 



