A CROCODILE KILLED. 
409 
especially states were less ferocious than those of 
the Orinoco, for that “ the people of New Barcelona 
convey wood to market by floating the logs on the 
river, while the proprietors swim here and there to 
set them loose when they are stopped by the banks, 
which he says they could not have done in most of 
the South American rivers infested by these animals.” 
When he makes reference to the same animals in 
the marshes of Cuba, he distinctly speaks of them as 
two species of Crocodile, one of which he describes as 
having an elongated snout, and as being very fero- 
cious. Daring and power in the water seem there- 
fore to be the distinction of the Crocodile, and 
timidity and stealthiness that of the Cayman; a dif- 
ference which we might infer from the difference in 
the feet of the two reptiles.” 
February \9th, 1849. — A Crocodile (the animal 
we usually speak of as an alligator) had been taken 
in the fish-nets at Hanson’s pond by a fishing party, 
and brought into the King’s House yard alive. It 
had just been killed by a pistol bullet discharged into 
its hrain when I saw it. I attended whilst the ne- 
' groes skinned it, and had an opportunity afforded me 
of observing the several peculiarities which are men- 
tioned as characteristic in the structure of Crocodiles. 
I' I shall set them down as they successively came 
' under my notice. 
j ‘‘ On opening the jaws, the attention is taken by the 
I sight of a conspicuous cartilaginous plate before the 
gullet, forming a ridge from one side of the fauces 
I to the other, and expanding upward to meet a similar 
I elastic fold depending from the back of the palate. 
