NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 7 



both belong to the genus Thyrosternum. Mr. Agassiz likewise thinks that my 

 Emys concinna and Dr. Holbrook's E. Floridana are the same. My friend will 

 pardon me when I say, that he probably has not had an opportunity of examin- 

 ing my species. There is no specimen in the collection of the Academy which 

 I can recognise as the animal once described by me. These two species are by 

 no means alike. The E. concinna is most beautifully smooth, nothing can be 

 more so; the E. Floridana is extremely rough with longitudinal rugae, it is besides 

 sometimes three times the size of the other, and the marks on the head and neck 

 are entirely different. According to this excellent naturalist the K. lonyicau- 

 datum and K. brevicaudalum of Spix, form but one species. They differ, however ; 

 the first has the sternum sharply emarginate behind, and the brachial scuta is 

 narrow, triangular and very much truncate at the apex. In the other the sternum 

 is bluntly emarginate behind and the brachial perfectly and acutely triangular. 

 Mr. Bell's scorpioides is not the animal described so long ago under that name, 

 as the want of the caudal nail sufficiently shews ; the specific name of this 

 tortoise was given it on account of that appendage. Neither is it the K. brevi- 

 caudatum nor the lonyicaudatum of Spix. This author thinks that the female 

 tortoises have long and the males short tails ; it is just the reverse. 



When my son was in Honduras, he obtained a species of tortoise much 

 larger than any that we have seen in the United States. The shell was nearly 

 two feet long; unfortunately this was afterwards destroj'ed, but the head and 

 limbs having been put into a jar of alcohol reached here in safety. In order 

 to keep alive the remembrance of this animal and to induce others to look for 

 it, I add a description of the head and tail, the only parts to which I can 

 have access at present, premising that it belongs to the genus Emys (Ptjxhe- 

 mys Agass.) and has the jaws serrate in the same manner as the E. niobiliensis . 



Emys valida. Head and neck above dusky inclining to brown, striped with 

 yellow, the stripes on the top very few, on the sides very numerous, one of them 

 running from the middle of the orbit to the back part of the neck, widens con- 

 siderably after it passes the superior part of the cheek; beneath yellow with 

 numerous lines of dusky; nose and jaws striped with yellow, jaws serrate, the 

 lower one hooked, the upper emarginate. Tail dusky with two yellow lines on 

 the top and three on the under side, the outer one of which on each side 

 branches off in such a manner as to surround the vent, above which it crosses 

 the tail transversely. Head 4 inches long, tail 3 inches. 



Sixty years ago, in the Tammany Museum in New York, there was the shell 

 of an Emys three feet long ; it had been used by an Indian as a shield and had 

 varied devices painted on it ; it was said to come from Lake Erie. Nothing like 

 this has since been seen, but I am told that in the head waters of the Missis- 

 sippi tortoises of an immense size and in great quantity have been observed. 



Since writing the above, Prof. Baird has called my attention to the Atlantic 

 Journal of Mr. Rafinesque, where there are some remarks on the tortoises of 

 the United States. This author names the Testudo Carolina, the Kerobates of 

 Agassiz, Gopherus ; his Cheliphus appears to be the true Kinosternum Agassiz, 

 the Vronyx the Thyrosternum of the same ; Didicla is the Cistudo, Chelopus is 

 Nanemys and Cheliurus is the Chelydra. 



Although it has become customary to pay no attention to any thing publish- 

 ed by this very indefatigable explorer of the productions of our country, I do 

 not think it right when a genus or a species has been announced as suggested 

 or discovered by him, to pass it over without notice. From an unfortunate 

 shipwreck in which he lost every thing that he possessed in the world, he be- 

 came disordered in his intellect. Notwithstanding his propensity for seeing 

 differences which were not apparent to others, many of his observations are 

 truly valuable, and no naturalist should think his labors perfect unless he has 

 searched through the many publications of this unfortunate naturalist, and dis- 

 covered whether or no he had been anticipated by him. No one seems ever to 

 have looked for his Opalone, a soft shelled tortoise with five nails, found in the 

 upper branches of the Hudson River. 



1859.] 



