| a new Fossil Animal | 561 |
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The family, then, to which we would thus refer the animals above mentioned, and to which future researches may be expected to add other analogous genera,* may be described as including animals approaching more closely to the Saurian or Lizard family, and especially to the genus Crocodile, than to any other recent type; yet receding from it in many important characters, especially in the form of their paddles, which possess an intermediate structure between the feet of quadrupeds and the fins† of fishes, and have been well distinguished by the above appropriate name. As these |
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| * I do not intend here to include those fossil
animals, which are clearly only distinguished by specific characters
from the recent crocodiles, but those which, though approximating more
closely to this than to any other type, are yet marked by generic and
essential differences. † The analogy of these paddles to the fins of fish consists in the number, not in the form of the joints composing them. In many respects, as will hereafter be shewn, they approach most nearly to the paddles of the turtle. |
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