COMMON CROCODILE. 185 



Niger, &c. and preying principally on fish, but 

 occasionally seizing on almost every animal which 

 happens to be exposed to its rapacity. The size 

 to which the Crocodile sometimes arrives is prodi- 

 gious ; specimens being frequently seen of twenty 

 feet in length, and instances are commemorated 

 of some which have exceeded the length of thirty 

 feet. The armour with which the upper part of 

 the body is covered may be numbered among 

 the most elaborate pieces of Nature's mechanism. 

 In the full grown animal it is so strong and thick 

 as easily to repel a musket-ball ; on the lower parts 

 it is much thinner, and of a more pliable nature: 

 the whole animal appears as if covered with the 

 most regular and curious carved-work : the colour 

 of a full-grown Crocodile is blackish- brown above, 

 and yellowish-white beneath ; the upper parts of 

 the legs and the sides varied with deep yellow, and 

 in some parts tinged with green. In the younger 

 animals the colour on the upper parts is a mix- 

 ture of brown and pale yellow, the under parts 

 being nearly white : the eyes are provided with 

 a nictitating membrane, or transparent, moveable 

 pellicle, as in birds: the mouth is of vast width, 

 the rictus or gape having a somewhat flexuous 

 outline, and both jaws being furnished with very 

 numerous sharp-pointed teeth, of which those 

 about the middle part of each jaw considerably 

 exceed the rest in size, and seem analogous to the 

 canine teeth in the viviparous quadrupeds or 

 mamnnalia: the number of teeth, in each jaw, is 



