ALLIGATORS ANDICROCODILES 
THE CHINESE ALLIGATOR 
Until the year 1870 alligators were believed to be 
purely New World Crocodilia, though crocodiles were 
known to extend their range from East to West, indeed 
from China to Peru. In 1870 this view was partly 
proved to be inaccurate, and entirely so in 1879, when 
the Chinese alligator, Alligator sinensis, was definitely 
described from the Yang-tse-Kiang. To the visitor 
to the Reptile House there will appear to be no great 
facility for distinguishing Crocodiles from alligators. 
And yet there are several points in which these two 
divisions of the existing crocodilia can be observed to 
differ from each other. The true alligators have the 
fourth tooth on each side of the lower jaw fitted into 
a pit in the upper jaw when both are closed, while in 
the crocodiles this same tooth fits into a notch at the 
corresponding spot in the upper jaw. Judged by this 
standard the Chinese crocodilian is unquestionably 
not a crocodile, but an alligator. The differences 
which mark this Flowery Land alligator from others 
of America are but slight, and both crocodiles and 
alligators are linked so closely together that anatomy 
is somewhat hard put to it to separate them by any 
than the most trivial characters ; so that the general 
features of the crocodile tribe can be as well illustrated 
by the type we have selected as by any other. Other- 
wise it might have seemed a little perverse to select for 
the type of this group a creature which is not certainly 
to be seen by vis-tors to the Zoo. It has, however, 
been on view, and very possibly will be again. 
The crocodile tribe can hardly be mistaken for any 
other Saurians. And yet the very name alligator, a 
corruption of the Spanish Una Lagarta, testifies to the 
confusion which may spring in the non-zoological 
mind. That the crocodiles and alligators are con- 
fined to water only, leaving their streams and pools 
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