332 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. x. 



the loud, sharp snappings of its formidably-armed 

 jaws. He might have watched the deadly struggle 

 between the crocodile and the palseothere, and 

 have been himself warned by the hoarse and deep 

 bellowings of the alligator from the dangerous 

 vicinity of its retreat. Our fossil evidences supply 

 us with ample materials for this most strange pic- 

 ture of the animal life of ancient Britain ; and what 

 adds to the singularity and interest of the restored 

 tableau vivant is the fact that it could not now 

 be presented in any part of the world. The same 

 forms of crocodilian reptile, it is true, still exist ; 

 but the habitats of the crocodile and the alligator 

 are wide asunder, thousands of miles of land and 

 ocean intervening : one is peculiar to the tropical 

 rivers of continental Asia ; the other is restricted 

 to the warmer latitudes of North and South 

 America ; both forms are excluded from Africa, 

 in the rivers of which continent true crocodiles 

 alone are found. Not one representative of the 

 crocodilian order naturally exists in any part of 

 Europe ; yet every form of the order once 

 flourished in close proximity to each other in a 

 territory which now forms part of England.' 



Amongst the other papers which he found time 

 to write may be mentioned the ' Anatomy of the 

 Apteryx ' (' Zoological Transactions '), ' On the 

 Hippopotamus ' (at the Zoological Gardens), in 

 the ' Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' 

 and also the first of a long series of papers on 



