32 TESTUDINIDjE. 



hyoplastron and the carapace shorter than that between the hypo- 

 plastron and the carapace ; pectoral shields as long as the abdo- 

 minals or shorter, as long as the numerals or slightly longer ; 

 axillary and inguinal small or absent. Head rather small ; upper 

 jaw scarcely hooked, without any einargination. Front part of 

 arm with large transverse scales. Digits moderately webbed, with 

 sharp claws. Carapace brown or blackish ; plastron yellow with 

 large black spots, or dark brown with the suture between the 

 shields yellow ; in the very young the black spots of the plastron 

 are confluent into a broad longitudinal zone, the borders of the 

 plastron being yellowish ; head and neck brown above, yellow 

 beneath ; a yellow band borders the head and neck superiorly, 

 meeting its fellow above the nostrils ; a second yellow band passes 

 through the eye and is separated from the upper jaw by a dark- 

 brown band ; ear yellow. 



Length of shell 8 inches. 



Hob. Pegu, Tenasserim, Siam, Malay Peninsula and Archipelago, 

 eastward to the Moluccas. 



Genus BELLIA, 

 Gray, P. Z. S. 1869, p. 197. 



Neural plates hexagonal, anterior lateral margins shortest. 

 Plastron extensively united to the carapace by suture, with long 

 axillary and inguinal buttresses, the latter anchylosed between 

 the fifth and sixth costal plates ; entoplastron intersected by the 

 humero-pectoral suture. Skull with a bony temporal arch ; alveolar 

 surfaces without median ridge ; choanse between the eyes. Skin 

 of hinder part of head divided into small shields. Digits webbed. 

 Tail very short, not longer in the young than in the- adult. 



Distribution. Burma, Siam, Malay Peninsula and Archipelago. 

 Semiaquatic. 



30. Bellia crassicollis. 



Emys crassicollis, Gray, Syn. Kept. p. 21 ; id. III. Ind. Zool. i, pi. Ixxvi, 



fig. 2 ; Cantor, J. A. S. B. xvi, 1847, p. 609 ; Gunth. JRept. B. I. 



p. 28, pi. iv, fig. E. 

 Emys nigra, Blyth, J. A. S. B. xxiv, 1855, p. 713, and xxxii, 1863, 



p. 81. 

 Bellia cvassicollis, Gray, P. Z. S. 1869, p. 197; Bouleng. Cat. Chel 



fyc. p. 98. 

 Bellia crassilabris, Theob. Cat. p. 10. 



Carapace moderately depressed, tricarinate in the young, the 

 keels, especially the laterals, becoming indistinct in old specimens ; 

 vertebral region flattened in the adult male; posterior border 

 serrated ; nuchal small, broadest behind ; posterior side of first 

 vertebral not half the length of the shield in the adult ; vertebrals 

 2 to 4, as long as broad or a little broader than long, much nar- 

 rower than the costals, narrowly in contact with each other in old 



