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Show REPTILIA. are fixed to the cranium and are immovable ; their tongue is short and bristled with fleshy filaments; their stomach simple and strong; their intestines of a moderate length and destitute of a crecum. Their bladder is very large. The penis of the male is simple and large, and the eggs laid by the female are invested with. a hard shell. The ~ormer. is frequently known by its exterior from the concavity of Its sternum. They possess great tenacity of life,-and instances are on record in which they have been seen to move for several weeks after losing their head. They require but little nourishment, and can pass whole months and even years without eating. The Chelonia were all united by Linnreus in the genus TEsTuno, Lin. They have since been divided into five subgenera, chiefly from the forms and teguments of their shell, and of their feet. TEsTuno, Brog.(l) The land Tortoises have the shell arched and supported by a solid, bony frame, most of its lateral edges being soldered to the sternum; the legs, as if truncated, with very short toes, which are closely joined as far as the nails, all susceptible of being withdrawn between the bucklers; there are five nails to the fore-feet, the hind ones have four, all stout and conical. Several species live on vege· table food. T. grreca, L.; Schrepf. pl. viii, ix, is the species most com· mon in Eut·ope; it is found in Greece, Italy, Sardinia, and ap· parently all round the Mediterranean. It is distinguished by its wide and equally arched shell; by its raised scales or plates, which ar·e granulate in the centre, striated on the edges, and marbled with large ye1Jow and black spots; and by its paste· · rior edge in the middle, of which there is a prominence slightly bent over the tail. It rarely attains the length of a foot, lives on leaves, fruit, insects, and worms, excavates a hole in which it passes the winter, and breeds in the spring, laying four or five eggs similar to those of a Pigeon. Among the species foreign to Europe there are several from the (1) Merrem has changed this name into CnEnSINE. CHELONIA. 7 East Indies, of an enormous size, and three feet, and upwards, in length. One of them in pat•ticular has been called the Test. indica, Vosm.; Schrepf. Tort. pl. xxii. (The India Tortoise.) Its shell is compressed in front, and its anterior edge is turned up above the head. Its colour is a deep brown. Some of them are remarkable for the beautiful distribution of their colours; such are, T. geometrica, L.; Lacep. I, ix; Schrepf. x. (The Geometr·ica:.) A small Tortoise, each plate of whose shell is regularly ornamented with yellow ~ines, radiating from a disk of the same colour. T. radiata, Shaw, Gen. Zool. III, pl. ii; and Daucl. II, xxvi. (The Coui'.) A New Holland species, ornamented with nearly as much regularity as the Geometrica, but which attains a much larger size.( 1) In some species, the PYxis, Bell., the anterior part of the sternum is movable like that of the Box-Tortoises; others again, the KINIXYS, Id., can move the posterior portion.(2) E:r.ns, Brongn.(3) The fresh-water Tortoises have no other constant characters by which they can be distinguished from the preceding ones, than the greater separation of the toes, which are terminated by longer nails, and the intervals occupied by membranes; even in this respect there are shades of difference. They likewise have five nails before and four behind. The form of their feet renders their habits more aquatic. Most of them feed on insects, small fishes, &c. Their envelope is generally more flattened than that of the Janel Tortoises. (1) Add: T. stellata, Schrepf. XXV;-T. angulata, Schweig;-T. areolata, Sch., XXIII;-T. marginata, Sch. XII, 1, 2;-T. denticulata, Sch., XXVIII, 1;-T. cafra, Schweig;-T. signata, Schw.;-T. carbonaria, Spix, XVI;-T. Hercules, Id. XIV; -T. cagado, Id. XVII;-7~ tabulata, Sch., XIII;-T. sculpta, Spix, XV;-T. nigra, Quoy :md Gaym. Voy. de Freycin. Zoo}. XXXVII;-T. depressa, Cuv.;-T.biguttata, ld. ;-T. carolina, Le Conte, &c.• (2) See the paper of M. Bell., in the Lin. Trans. Vol. XV, part 2, p. 392; in two of these Kinixys which we have seen living, the edges of the joint in the shield were worn away, or as if carious, and to such a degree as to induce a suspicion that there was something morbid in this conformation. t3) From tp.u~, Tortoise. • This is a mistake of our authoL·; it is the T. carolina, Gmel., the T. polypltemus of others. .11m. Ed. |