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Show 716 DR. J. E. GRAY ON THE DERM ATE MY D/E. [Nov. 1, The intramarginal plates are sometimes divided in halves on one or both sides. CHLOREMYS ABNOKMIS. (Plate XLII.) Animal and shell olive above and white below; upper part and sides of the head and neck blackish olive, with a pale streak from the back of the eye, over the ear, along the side of the neck. Dermatemys abnormis, Cope, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sc. Philad. 1868, p. 120. Hab. "Yucatan, Belize River (Dr. Parsons)." Mr. Cope's, as well as the one in the Gardens, is a young specimen ; but he observes, " I cannot suppose the vertebral scutes become as narrow or the carapace as fully ossified in maturity as in the other species." In the colouring of the head it resembles the figure of M . Auguste Dumeril, but not in any other character. The young living specimen in the gardens of the Society, about 4 inches long, is dull olive-brown above, and pale yellowish beneath. The lower surface of the marginal plates olive, the sternal and submarginal shields being uniform white. The tail is very short, conical, rudimentary. Head black-olive; the end of nose red; the upper beak is of the same colour as the head, and looks as if covered with skin ; but this is not the case, for it is very hard. The lower beak paler. There is a very indistinct, broad, rather irregular pale streak from the back edge of the eye along the back of the neck. The nuchal plate very small. Dorsal scutes very thin. The areolae large, granular; those of the vertebral plates in the middle of the hinder margin of the shield; those of the costal plates rather above the middle of the hinder margin of the shield; of the marginal plates on the hinder outer margin of each shield as visible below as above, rather on the outer edge of the middle of the hinder part of the sternal plate, and quite on the hinder outer margin of the intramarginal plates. The skin of the neck and feet covered with small scales. The outer edge of the legs with a well-marked fringe; the front edge of the fore legs with numerous, very narrow, slightly curved band-like shields. The toes slender, covered above with narrow band-like plates, very broadly webbed to the claws. Claws 5 . 4, black, slender, and acute. Pupil black, surrounded by an olive iris, without any black spot on the side as in American Terrapins. The submarginal plates seem liable to vary in form and number ; for in this specimen they differ on the two sides. On the right side there are seven : the first, which is probably an axillary plate, is small; then follow three moderate-sized, the middle one of which is divided across (this is clearly an accidental division) ; then there is a small triangular plate between the last and the transverse band-like inguinal plate. On the left side, which I should say had the normal structure, there is a rather larger axillary plate : three submarginal plates, the hinder being the largest, and a transverse band-like inguinal plate. |