500 



congeners. The species are often confined to certain localities, 

 and in a few their limits are very circumscribed. 



The two American species of Crocodilus, viz., rhombifer and 

 acutus, were first described by Cuvier as confined to the West 

 Indies and South America, which view was accepted by natural- 

 ists for a long time. Subsequently the C. acutus has been discov- 

 ered in different parts of Central America, and in 1870 Professor 

 Jeffries Wyman described a skull from Florida as belonging to 

 that species. Reports are current in Florida of a true crocodile 

 existing there, but specimens have not been secured until very 

 recently. The present year has thrown more light upon the sub- 

 ject by the capture of two fine specimens. 



My personal observations on the subject were confined to the 

 southeast coast of Florida, particularly the vicinity of Biscayne 

 Bay. While there last winter collecting for the Museum of Prof. 

 Ward, of Rochester, New York, I obtained sight of a reptile that 



convinced me was a crocodile. After two unsuccessful attempts 

 I succeeded in killing him by lying in wait for him with my rifle, 

 opposite his favorite mud-wallow on the bank of the stream. It 

 proved to be a male, — huge, old and ugly. His tenacity of life 

 was surprising, and his frantic struggles in and out of water made 

 the fight interesting for some time. He lived for quite an hour 

 after six rifle-balls had been fired into his nape in the direction of 

 the brain. He measured fourteen feet in length, and his girth at 

 a point midway between fore and hind legs was five feet two 

 inches. His teeth were large and blunt ; his head rugose and 

 knotty, with armor plates very large and rough, all conspiring to 

 give him a very ugly and savage appearance. On dissection it 

 was found that he had been very pugnacious, or else was a perse- 

 cuted and unfortunate individual. Three of his teeth were more 

 or less shattered ; the tibia and fibula of the right hind leg had 

 been broken in the middle and united, also one of the metatarsal 

 bones of the same limb ; about five inches had been bitten off the 



ably an old wound, two of the vertebrae near the middle of the 

 tail had grown together solidly at an awkward angle. 



The day following the above capture (January 22, 1*7.V) I had 

 the further good fortune to kill at the same spot the mate of this 

 crocodile, a beautiful female, measuring ten feet eight inches. 



