John White’s North American Reptiles 125 
chances of exposure to the alligator were obviously much more numerous 
than chances of exposure to the crocodile, the features shown certainly 
more closely conform with those of a crocodile than an alligator. The 
label “Allagatto” is just as likely a corruption of the Spanish “el 
lagarto,” applied to the crocodile in the West Indies, as of “alligator” 
(also a corruption from Spanish), applied to Alligator. The light color 
and narrow straight jaws are particularly significant. We conclude that 
the crocodile significantly influenced the depiction, even if it is a 
composite. The crocodile does occur in Florida, but only at the extreme 
southern tip; White did not reach any part of Florida, his two paintings 
of Floridians having been copied from the work of Jacques Le Moyne 
de Morgues. 
There is also the possibility, brought to our attention by Dr. Adler, 
that White could have been influenced in his depiction of the crocodilian 
by illustrations widely circulated in Europe by that time of the similar 
Crocodylus niloticus of Egypt. In view of the reasonably close accuracy 
of his other paintings, we assume that White did not have a chance to 
examine any crocodilian very closely, else his depiction would have been 
more faithful to the subject. Hence, the influence of extraneous 
impressions, as of C. niloticus illustrations of his era, should not be 
excluded as a possibility in the apparent absence of close observations 
of the American species. 
The preceding identifications were adopted by Hulton (1984) from 
a preliminary version of this article that he kindly reviewed in 1981. 
Despite the flaws now evident in White’s herpetological paintings 
when compared with modern illustrations, in the context of his era his 
drawings are remarkably superior, surpassing any others executed for 
several succeeding generations, including the works of Catesby (1731- 
43) and Bartram (1791). His stature as a natural history artist is 
unequalled and merits as much honor as is commonly awarded, for 
example, to Audubon in a much later era. Because all of his paintings 
that now survive are replicas of originals now lost, it is likely that some 
fidelity to the originals has been lost. 
White’s five paintings are the earliest known for North American 
and West Indian reptiles, and the earliest now in existence for any 
reptiles of the western hemisphere. They are not the earliest published 
illustrations, however, because they were not reproduced for the general 
public until Lorant included them in his 1946 work. 
Although mass-reproduced with accuracy only in the past 35 years 
or so, some of White’s painting were redrawn many times in works in 
the preceding centuries, beginning with the Sloane (1709-14?) portfolio 
of 112 leaves of drawings (now only 110). In the Sloane volume the 
