Crocodiles. 
distinct sockets, which, are continually being renewed from 
below. The skull is relatively large in proportion to the body, 
and is usually much depressed ; its component bones are firmly 
united and generally have a characteristic sculpture on their 
external surface. The palatines and pterygoids unite in the 
middle line and thus close the palate, and very frequently one or 
both of these paired bones develop inferior plates, which meet 
beneath the narial passages. The quadrate is tightly wedged in 
Fig. 6 . — Crocodilus palustris (Lesson). 1, lateral, and 2, upper views of skull ; 3, palatal 
view of cranium; E , aperture of median eustachian canal; V, posterior nares; 
0, 0, orbits ; P, P , palato-pterygoid vacuities ; T, supra-temporal fossae ; V, basi- 
occipital. The figures are much reduced. Common, living in Western India. 
Fossil in the Pleistocene deposits of the Narbada Valley, India. 
among the adjacent bones ; the tympanic cavities usually com- 
municate with the mouth by three eustachian canals ; the 
mandibular symphysis unites by suture ; there are, as a rule, no 
ossifications in the sclerotic of the eyeball. There is almost 
invariably a lateral vacuity in the mandible. The vertebral 
of these reptiles are cup-shaped or concave at both ends, 
as in Teleosaurus ; or concave in front and convex behind, as in 
the Crocodile from Sheppey (Tig. 7) and in all living Croco- 
Crocodilia. 
Wall-case, 
No. 2. 
Table-cases, 
Nos. 2 to 7. 
