Transcriber’s Notes
Texts printed in italics and bold face in the source document have
been transcribed between _underscores_ and =equal signs=. Small
capitals have been replaced with ALL CAPITALS.
More Transcriber’s Notes may be found at the end of this text.
[Illustration:
Copyright, 1907, by Doubleday, Page & Company
ALLIGATOR MISSISSIPPIENSIS. (After Ditmars.)
(Reproduced by Permission of Doubleday, Page & Company.)]
The
Alligator and Its Allies
By
Albert M. Reese, Ph.D.
Professor of Zoölogy in West Virginia University
Author of “An Introduction to Vertebrate Embryology”
_With 62 Figures and 28 Plates_
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1915
COPYRIGHT, 1915
BY
ALBERT M. REESE
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
PREFACE
The purpose of this volume is to bring together, in convenient form for
the use of students of zoölogy, some of the more important details of
the biology, anatomy, and development of the Crocodilia. For obvious
reasons the American Alligator is the species chiefly used.
In the first chapter the discussion of the alligator is largely the
result of the personal observations of the author; the facts in regard
to the less familiar forms are taken from Ditmars and others. The
description of the skeleton, with the exception of short quotations
from Reynolds, is the author’s.
The chapter on the muscular system is a translation from Bronn’s
_Thierreich_, and the author has not verified the descriptions of that
writer.
The description of the nervous system is partly the author’s and partly
taken from Bronn and others.
The chapters on the digestive, urogenital, respiratory, and vascular
systems are practically all from descriptions by the author.
The chapter on “The Development of the Alligator” is a reprint, with
slight alterations, of the paper of that title published for the author
by the Smithsonian Institution.
The bibliography, while not complete, will be found to contain most of
the important works dealing with this group of reptiles.
The author is grateful to Mr. Raymond L. Ditmars and to his publishers,
Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co., and Messrs. Sturgis & Walton, for the
use of a number of plates; to the Macmillan Company and to the United
States Bureau of Fish and Fisheries for the same privilege; to the
National Museum for photographs of the skull of the gavial; and to
the Smithsonian Institution for the use of the plates from researches
published by them and included herein.
Proper acknowledgment is made, under each borrowed figure, to the
author from whom it is taken.
MORGANTOWN, W. VA.
_May 1, 1915._
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
THE BIOLOGY OF THE CROCODILIA 1