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Show 1^90.] ON THE CHINESE ALLIGATOR. 619 The following papers were read :- 1. Remarks on the Chinese Alligator. By (>. A. BOULENGER. [Eeceived October 7, 1890.] (Plates LI. & LII.) Although the first intimation of the existence of a Crocodilian the Yang-tze-kiang appeared in these Proceedings in 18701, it was not until nine years later that M . Fauvel, a French gentleman in the service of the Chinese Customs, made us acquainted with the animal, which surprisingly proved to belong to the American genus Alligator. In his excellent paper2 M . Fauvel not only gave a very satisfactory description of the new Alligator, for which he proposed the name of A. sinensis, but dwelt at great length with the former records of it in Chinese literature. A stuffed specimen was forwarded by M. Fauvel to the Paris Museum, where I had the pleasure of examining it in 1880; two others, kept for some time alive by tbe German Consul von Mollendorff, were after their death transmitted to the Berlin Museum, as we are informed by Boettger3. It was not until last year that two specimens, obtained at Kiu Kiang by Mr. Styan, were received in this country, one of which was retained for the British Museum. The Society has now the advantage of exhibiting two living specimens in its Menagerie4, presented by Mr. D. C. Janson of Shanghai, on August 26th. Upon these and the stuffed specimen in the British Museum, I propose to offer some remarks, accompanied by a figure of the animal. The Chinese Alligator belongs to the genus Alligator in the restricted sense ; its nearest ally is the North-American A. mississipjn-ensis, which differs from the Central and South-American forms (Caiman) chiefly in the presence of a bony septum dividing the commonly single nasal aperture. However, the Chinese species approaches the Caimans in the greater development of the bony plate in the upper eyelid and in the presence of ossifications in the ventral shields. These ossifications, however, are wide apart, neither juxtaposed nor imbricate on any portion of the ventral region. Among the characters hitherto given as diagnostic of A. sinensis, two prove not to be constant:- 1. The three pairs of nuchal scutes may be reduced to two, as shown by the larger specimen in the Society's Menagerie; the other specimen has an additional fifth scute on the right side, but it is small. The three pairs are all present in the British-Museum specimen. 1 Swinhoe, P. Z. S. 1870, p. 410. 2 A. A. Fauvel, " Alligators in China," Journ. N. China Br. As. Soc. (2) xiii. 1879, pp. 1-36, figs. 3 O. Boettger, Ber. Offenb. Ver. Nat. 1888, p. 112. 4 I hear from my friend Dr. Boettger that two specimens have just been received by tbe Zoological Gardens of h'rankfort-on-the-Main. |
