190 COMMOIsT CROCt)t)ILE. 



in the Museum of the Royal Society. His words 

 are these : The articulations of tlie lower jaw 

 with the upper, and of the occiput with the fore- 

 most vertebra of the neck, are here made both in 

 the same manner, as in other quadrupeds, not- 

 withstanding the tradition of his moving the 

 upper jaw : the senselessness of this tradition is 

 plain from the structure of the bones, that is the 

 articulation only of the occiput with the neck, and 

 of the nether jaw with the upper, as abovesaid. " 



The first author of it was Aristotle, in his 

 fourth book de pm^tibus animalium, cap, 1 1 . and 

 thus much is true, not only of this creature, but 

 of all others which have a long head and a wide 

 rictus, that when they open their mouths, they 

 seem to move both jaws ; as both the viper and 

 the lizard ; and for the same reason Columna 

 might say as much of the Hippopotamus, that he 

 moves the upper jaw, as the Crocodile. So all 

 birds, especially with long bills, shew the contem- 

 porary motion of both the mandibles ; the musculi 

 splenii pulling back the occiput, and so a little rais- 

 ing the upper, while the musculi digastrici pull the 

 other down. But that this motion was not meant by 

 Aristotle, appears in his first book De Hist. Anim. 

 c. 1 1 . & lib. 3. c. 7. where he saith more plainly, 

 that of all other animals only the Crocodile moveth 

 the upper jaw ; so that he speaks of it as a motion 

 strange and peculiar ; as if the upper mandible did 

 make an articulation with the cranium ; contrary 

 to what is here seen ; and if we will hear Piso, who 



