A CROCODILE FROM SOUTHERN UNITED STATES.
The teeth of crocodiles, as compared with those of alligators, are much less uniform in size and character.
Other noteworthy crocodiles, of which space will allow only of the mention of their names, are the American or Orinoco Crocodile, and the Long-snouted Crocodile of West Africa, which distantly approach to the Long-snouted Gavial or Garial of India, in which the snout is elongated in a beak-like manner, and armed with close rows of long, recurved teeth, specially adapted for its exclusively fish-eating propensities. Full-grown examples of the gavial may attain to a length of 20 feet.
The Typical or Mississippi Alligator is, as its name denotes, a North American form, having the modified dental and other structural details previously referred to, but otherwise in size and its aggressively destructive habits nearly corresponding with the Oriental crocodile. A second species of alligator is found in China.
Photo by Scholastic Photo. Co.] [Parson's Green.
MISSISSIPPI AND CHINESE ALLIGATORS.
The Chinese species, which is the smaller of the two, feeds mainly upon fish.
In the tropical South American rivers the place of the alligator is occupied by the Caimans, some of which attain to huge proportions, and are distinguished from the former by the greater development of the bony armature of both their back and under-surface, and by certain essential, but to the lay reader obscure, modifications of the skull. An example of the Great Caiman once did duty as a riding-horse to the naturalist Waterton, as all those familiar with his book of travels will remember.
The habits of the caiman differ somewhat locally. From the main stream of the Lower Amazon they are in the habit of migrating in the dry season to the inland pools and flooded forests. In the middle districts of the same river, where the drought is excessive and protracted, the caimans are addicted to burying themselves in the mud till the rains return; while in the upper reaches of the Amazon, where the droughts are not prolonged, the caimans are perennially present. The eggs of these reptiles are much esteemed for food by the natives of Dutch Guiana.