being commemorated by Derham*, and many other writers, and its shell is preserved in the library of the palace at Lambeth †.

The general manners of the tortoise, in a state of domestication in this country, are very agreeably detailed by Mr. White, in his History of Selbourn. "A land tortoise," says Mr. White, “which has been kept thirty years in a little walled court, retires under ground about the middle of November, and comes forth again about the middle of April. When it first appears in the spring, it discovers very little inclination for food, but in the height of summer grows voracious; and theu, as the summer declines, its appetite declines; so that for the last weeks in autumn it hardly eats at all. Milky plants, such as lettuces, dandelions, sowthistles, &c. are its principal food. On the first of November, 1771, I remarked that the tortoise began to dig the ground, in order to form its hybernaculum, which it had fixed on just beside a great tuft of Hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with its fore feet, and throws it up over its back with its hind, but the motion of its legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour hand of a clock. Nothing can be more assiduous than this creature, night and day, in scooping the earth, and forcing its great body into the cavity; but as the noons of that season proved unusually warm and sunny, it was continually interrupted, and called forth by the heat in the middle of the day, and though I continued there till the thirteenth of November, yet the work remained unfinished. Harsher weather, and frosty mornings, would have quickened its operations. No part of its behaviour ever struck me more than the extreme timidity it always expresses with regard to rain; for though it has a shell that would secure it against the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it discover as much solicitude about rain as a lady dressed in all her

* In a copy of the work entitled Memoirs for the Natural History of Animals, from the French Academy, and which was once the property of Derham, the following MS. note occurs:

"I imagine land-tortoises, when arrived at a certain pitch, cease growing. For that I saw, Aug. 11, 1712, in my Lord Archbishop of Canterbury's Garden, which hath been there ever since Archbishop Juxon's time, and is accounted to be above 60 years old, was of the same size I have seen others of, of larger size, and much younger."

+ This memorable tortoise appears to have exceeded the usual dimensions of its species; the shell measuring ten inches in length, and six and a balf in breadth.

best attire, shuffling away on the first sprinklings, and running its head up in a corner. If attended to, it becomes an excellent weather-glass, for as sure as it walks elate, and, as it were ou tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness, in a morning, so sure will it rain before night. It is totally a diurnal animal, and never pretends to stir after it becomes dark."

"The tortoise," adds Mr. W. "like other reptiles, has an arbitrary stomach, as well as lungs, and can refrain from eating, as well as breathing, for a great part of the year. I was much taken with its sagacity, in discerning those that do it kind offices; for as soon as the good old lady comes in sight, who has waited on it for more than thirty years, it hobbles towards its benefactress with awkward alacrity; but remains inattentive to strangers. Thus, not only "the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib," but the most abject and torpid of beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the feelings of gratitude. This creature not only goes under the earth from the middle of November to the middle of April, but sleeps great part of the summer; for it goes to bed in the longest days at four in the afternoon, and often does not stir in the morning till late. Besides, it retires to rest for every shower, and does not move at all in wet days. When one reflects on the state of this strange being, it is a matter of wonder that Providence should bestow such a seeming waste of longevity, on a reptile that appears to relish it so little as to squander away more than two thirds of its existence in a joyless stupor, and be lost to all sensation for months together, in the profoundest of all slumbers! Though he loves warm weather, he avoids the hot sun; because his thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poet says of solid armour, scald with safety.' He therefore spends the more sultry hours under the umbrella of a large cabbage-leaf, or amidst the waving forests of an asparagus bed. But as he avoids heat in the summer, so in the decline of the year, he improves the faint autumnal beams, by getting within the reflection of a fruittree wall; and though he has never read that planes inclining to the horizon receive a greater share of warmth, he inclines his shell by tilting it against the wall, to collect and admit every feeble ray." The tortoise seems more tenacious of the vital principle than any other of the amphibia. Redi informs us, that in making some experiments on vital motion, he, in the beginning of November,

took a land tortoise, and made a large opening in its skull, and drew out all the brain, washing the cavity, so as to leave not the smallest part remaining, and then, leaving the hole open, set the animal at liberty. Notwithstanding this treatment, the tortoise marched away, without seeming to have received the smallest injury: it however closed its eyes, and never opened them afterwards. In a short space the hole of the skull was seen to close, and in about three days there was a complete skin covering the wound; and in this mauner the animal lived, without the brain, for six months, walking about, and moving its limbs as before. Redi also cut off the head of a tortoise, which lived twenty-three days afterwards; and the head itself continued to snap the jaws for more than a quarter of an hour after its separation from the body. He repeated the experiment of taking out the brain upon several other tortoises, both of land and fresh water; all of which lived for a considerable space without the brain. He observed also, that having cut off the heads of some, and opening the bodies twelve days afterwards, the motion of the heart was still perceptible; so slowly is the vital principle discharged from these inactive animals.

[Gmelin. Shaw.

SECTION H.

Crocodile.

Lacerta crocodilus.-LINN

THE lacerta or lizard kind is a very numerous division; and comprises animals, possessing indeed much of the same general structure, but remarkably different in size and power: for to this division belong equally the crocodile and alligator; lizards of all sorts; the salamander, and chameleon, the newt and eft.

The crocodile, so remarkable for its size and powers of destruction, has in all ages been regarded as one of the most formidable animals of the warmer regions. It is a native of Asia and Africa, but seems to be most common in the latter; inhabiting large rivers, as the Nile, the Niger, &c. and preying principally on fish, but occasionally seizing on almost every animal which happens to be exposed to its rapacity. The size to which the crocodile sometimes arrives is prodigious; specimens being frequently seen of twenty feet in length, and instances are commemorated of some which

have exceeded the length of thirty feet. The armour with which the upper part of the body is covered may be numbered among the most elaborate pieces of nature's mechanism. In the full grown animal, it is so strong and thick as easily to repel a musket ball; on the lower parts it is much thinner, and of a more pliable nature: the whole animal appears as if covered with the most regular and curious carved-work: the colour of a full-grown crocodile is blackish-brown above, and yellowish-white beneath; the upper parts of the legs and the sides varied with deep yellow, and in some parts tinged with green. In the younger animals the colour on the upper parts is a mixture of brown and pale yellow, the under parts being nearly white the eyes are provided with a nicti:ating membrane, or transparent, moveable pellicle, as in birds: the mouth is of vast width, the rictus or gape having a somewhat flexuous outline, and both jaws being furnished with very numero's sharp pointed teeth, of which those about the middle part of each jaw considerably exceed the rest in size, and seem analogou; to the canine teeth in the viviparous quadrupeds or mammalia: the number of teeth, in each jaw, is thirty, or more; and they are so disposed as to alternate with each other when the mouth is closed: on taking out the teeth and examining the alveoli, it has been found that small teeth were forming beneath, in order to supply the loss of the others when shed: the auditory forimana are situated on the top of the head, above the eyes, and are moderately large, oval, covered by a membrane, having a longitudinal slit or opening, and thus in some degree resembling a pair of closed eyes: the legs are short, but strong and muscular: the fore feet have five toes, and are un. webbed the hind feet have only four toes, which are united towards their base by a strong web: the two interior toes on each of the fore feet, and the interior one of the hind feet, are destitute of claws on the other toes are strong, sharp, and curved claws : the tail is very long, of a laterally compressed form, and furnished

The number is observed to vary in different specimens; probably from the different age of the animal. In the skeleton described by Grew, and which measured about fourteen feet in length, there were thirty teeth in each jaw, and those teeth which appeared to be the least worn, were serrated by small denticulations on each side.

+ In the skeleton described by Grew there were claws on all the toes.

above with an upright process, formed by the gradual approxima tion of two elevated crests proceeding from the lower part of the back.

The crocodile, in a young state, is by no means to be dreaded, its small size and weakness preventing it from being able to injure any of the larger animals: it, therefore, contents itself with fish and other small prey; and such as have occasionally been brought to Europe are so far from being formidable or ferocious, that they may generally be handled with impunity; and either from weakness, or the effect of a cold climate, seem much inclined to torpidity; but in the glowing regions of Africa, where it arrives at its full strength and power, it is justly regarded as the most formidable inhabitant of the rivers. It lies in wait near the banks> and snatches dogs and other animals, swallowing them instantly, and then plunging into the flood, and seeking some retired part, where it may lie concealed till hunger again invites it to its prey. In its manner of attack it is exactly imitated by the common lacerta palustris, or water newt, which, though not more than about four or five inches long, will with the greatest ease swallow an insect of more than an inch in length; and that at one single effort, and with a motion so quick, that the eye can scarcely follow it. It poises itself in the water, and having gained a convenient dis. tance, springs with the utmost celerity on the insect, and swallows it. If, therefore, a small lizard of four or five inches only in length can thus instantaneously swallow an animal of a fourth part of its own length, we need not wonder that a crocodile of eighteen, twenty, or twenty-five feet long, should suddenly ingorge a dog or other quadruped.

Crocodiles, like the rest of the lacertæ, are oviparous: they deposit their eggs in the sand or mud, near or on the banks of the rivers they frequent, and the young, when hatched, immediately proceed to the water; but the major part are said to be commonly devoured by other animals, as ichneumons, birds, &c. The egg of the common or Nilotic crocodile is not much larger than that of a goose, and in external appearance bears a most perfect resem. blance to that of a bird; being covered with a calcareous shell, under which is a membrane. When the young are first excluded, the head bears a much larger proportion to the body than when full grown. The eggs, as well as the flesh of the crocodile itself,