from the egg, and some of which are imperfectly formed from spawn, we must group them under one head, and leave time to unravel the rest of their history.

CHAP. V.

Of the Crocodile, and its Affinities.

THE Crocodile is an animal placed at a happy distance from the inhabitants of Europe, and formidable only in those regions where men are scarce, and arts are but little known. In all the cultivated and populous parts of the world, the great animals are entirely banished, or rarely seen. The appearance of such raises at once a whole country up in arms to oppose their force; and their lives generally pay the forfeit of their temerity. The crocodile, therefore, that was once so terrible along the banks of the river Nile, is now neither so large, nor its number so great as formerly. The arts of mankind have, through a course of ages, powerfully operated to its destruction; and, though it is sometimes seen, it appears comparatively timorous and feeble.

To look for this animal in all its natural terrors, grown to an enormous size, propagated in surprising numbers, and committing unceasing devastations, we must go to the uninhabited regions of Africa and America, to those immense rivers that roll through extensive and desolate kingdoms, where arts have never penetrated, where force only makes

distinction, and the most powerful animals exert their strength with confidence and security. Those that sail up the river Amazon, or the river Niger, well know how numerous and terrible those animals are in such parts of the world. In both these rivers, they are found from eighteen to twenty-seven feet long; and sometimes lying as close to each other as a raft of timber upon one of our streams. There they indolently bask on the surface, no way disturbed at the approach of an enemy, since from the repeated trials of their strength, they found none that they were not able to subdue.

Of this terrible animal there are two kinds; the Crocodile, properly so called, and the Cayman or Alligator. Travellers, however, have rather made the distinction than Nature; for in the general outline, aud in the nature of these two animals, they are entirely the same. It would be speaking more properly to call these animals the crocodiles of the eastern and the western world; for in books of voyages they are so entirely confounded together, that there is no knowing whether the Asiatic animal be the Crocodile of Asia, or the Alligator of the western world. The distinctions usually made between the crocodile and alligator are these: the body of the crocodile is more slender than that of the alligator; its snout runs off tapering from the forehead, like that of a greyhound; while that of the other is indented, like the nose of a lap-dog. The crocodile has a much wider swallow, and is of an ash-colour; the alligator is black, varied with white, and is thought not to be so mischievous. All these distinctions, however, are very slight,

and can be reckoned little more than minute variations.*

This animal grows to a great length, being sometimes found thirty feet long, from the tip of the snout to the end of the tail: its most usual length, however, is eighteen. One which was dissected by the Jesuits at Siam was of the latter dimensions; and as the description which is given of it, both externally and internally, is the most accurate known of this noted animal, I must beg leave to give it as I find it, though somewhat tedious. It was eighteen feet and a half, French measure, in length; of which the tail was no less than five feet and a half, and the head and neck above two feet and a half. It was four feet nine inches in circumference, where thickest. The fore legs had the same parts and conformation as the arms of a man, both within and without. The hands, if they may be so called, had five fingers; the two last of which had no nails, and were of a conical figure. The hinder legs, including the thigh and paw, were two feet two inches long; the paws, from the joint to the extremity of the longest claws, were above nine inches: they were divided into four toes, of which three were armed with large claws, the longest of which was an inch and a half: these toes were united by a membrane, like those of a duck, but much thicker. The head was long, and had a little rising at the top; but the rest was flat, and especially towards the extremity of the jaws. It was covered by a skin, which adhered

[* * The Crocodile has a scaly mail round its neck, but the neck of the Alligator is naked: the tail of the Crocodile is likewise furnished with two lateral crested processes.]

firmly to the skull and to the jaws. The skull was rough and unequal in several places; and about the middle of the forehead there were two bony crests, about two inches high: the skull between these crests was proof against a musket-ball; for it only rendered the part a little white that it struck against. The eye was very small, in proportion to the rest of the body, and was so placed within its orbit, that the outward part, when the lid was closed, was only an inch long, and the line running parallel to the opening of the jaws. It was covered with a double lid, one within and one without: that within, like the nictitating membrane in birds, was folded in the great corner of the eye, and had a motion towards the tail, but being transparent, it covered the eye without hindering the sight. The iris was very large in proportion to the globe of the eye, and was of a yellowish grey colour. Above the eye the ear was placed, which opened from above downwards, as if it were by a kind of spring, by means of a solid, thick, cartilaginous substance. The nose was placed in the middle of the upper jaw, near an inch from its extremity, and was perfectly round and flat, being near two inches in diameter, of a black, soft, spongy substance, not unlike the nose of a dog. The jaws seemed to shut one within another; and nothing can be more false than that the animal's under jaw is without motion; it moves, like the lower jaw in all other animals, while the upper is fixed to the skull, and absolutely immoveable. The animal had twenty-seven cutting teeth in the upper jaw, and fifteen in the lower, with several void spaces between them they were thick at the