File:Image from page 219 of "Water reptiles of the past and present" (1914) (14750079706).jpg

Identifier: waterreptilesofp1914will Title: Water reptiles of the past and present Year: 1914 (1910s) Authors: Williston, Samuel Wendell, 1851-1918 Subjects: Aquatic reptiles Publisher: Chicago, Ill., The University of Chicago Press Contributing Library: Boston Public Library Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Public Library

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Text Appearing After Image: 4 1 -h % ■■■■■;•■.■; s ■ H \fi CROCODILIA 209 cannot be the least doubt regarding their ancestry. None of thecrocodiles which we have considered, whether ancient or modern,can truthfully be called purely aquatic. They never ceased to usetheir limbs for locomotion on land, more or less of the time, or forthe support of the body; and many of them have subsisted, inpart at least, on land animals. How easy it may have been forsome of them to become almost wholly emancipated from landhabits we may easily conjecture. The gavials, as we have seen,are more at home in the water than upon land; their food is chieflyfound in the water; but, so long as their habits restrict them chieflyto fresh water, or to the vicinity of the shores, their limbs continueto be used as much for crawling as for swimming. Were the gavialsto be driven out to sea by the stress of fresh-water conditions orattracted thereto by a greater abundance of more easily obtainableor better food, so far from lan

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