320 NEWLY DISCOVERED FOSSIL REPTILE 
8th, and 9tli dorsal are displaced, and lie in a 
hollow formed by the extremities of the left ribs and 
tile corresponding coracoid. Another vertebra of 
the back, 2*8 inches long (perhaps the 10th, e, Pl.V.), 
is thrown to the left side of tiie stone, resting on 
portions of two ribs ; the body is smooth and 
rounded, slightly arched, and its extremities, which 
are flat, are nearly circular, and 2 inches in diameter. 
It is scarcely necessary to observe, that the ribs 
and vertebrae above described are decidedly of the 
fossil crocodilian structure ; the union of the annu- 
lar part by suture occurring, as M. Cuvier observes, 
in the living reptiles, in the crocodiles and turtles 
only ; and if these bones were the only data from 
which to form an opinion of the nature of the ori- 
ginal animal, we could not hesitate to assign it to 
some one of the fossil crocodiles mentioned in 
a former part of this memoir. But the bones we 
have next to describe incontrovertibly prove that 
the animal could not have belonged even to the 
same family ; and they afford another striking 
example of that union and blending, as it were, of 
the different generic characters, which geology is 
constantly presenting to the comparative anatomist. 
In the Crocodile (fig. 5. in the opposite page), 
the sternum consists of a long, slender, flat bone, 
pointed both before and behind ; and this is 
supported on each side of the middle of its lateral 
edges by a coracoid of an elongated form, whicli 
has a thick neck near the humeral extremity, 
tliat enlarges into a plane and wide ])ortion, to 
attach itself to the sternum. The omoplate or 
scapifla is not unlike the coracoid ; its j)lane 
