The Ottawa Naturalist. [Aug.-Sept. 



The plastron has a length of 493 mm. Its most conspicuous 

 and interesting feature is the greatly extended epiplastral lip 

 which projects 28 mm. beyond the line of the front margin of 

 the carapace. The entoplastron is roughly five sided, and is 

 sharply pointed in front with its maximum breadth far back; 

 its hinder edge is broad and slightly convex. It measures 86 mm. 

 in length and 90 mm. in breadth. The anterior lobe is 163 mm. 

 long, with a breadth of base of 229 mm. The posterior lobe is 

 147 mm. long, and 239 mm. broad at the base. It is divided 

 behind by a V shaped notch, 40 mm. deep, on each side of which 

 the free border curves rather broadly round to the side. Through- 

 out the plastron the free border comes to an acute edge. 



The anterior lip has a length of 72 mm., in advance of a 

 line drawn between the outer termination of the gulo-humeral 

 sulci; its breadth is 98 mm. It is 19 mm. thick on each side of 

 the deeply impressed gular sulcus and thins outward to the acute 

 lateral border. On the upper surface it is more convex trans- 

 versely than beneath, where it ha saflat slope outward from the 

 midline. It maintains the same breadth forward from the base 

 to near the front, where it ends in two apices widely separated 

 by a V shaped notch 22 mm. deep. The border within the 

 notch is smooth and thick, but on either side in front it is thin 

 and irregular. 



The gular scutes appear to extend on to the entoplastron, 

 but the sulci here are not preserved. The humero-pectoral 

 and the pectoro-abdominal sulci cross the plastron 25 mm. and 

 59 mm. behind the back edge of the entoplastron respectively. 

 The pectoral scutes are thus very narrow, meeting along the 

 midline of the plastron for a distance only of 34mm. The 

 abdomino-femoral and the femoro-anal sulci are not preserved 

 toward the centre of the plastron, but measured between their 

 outer terminations the abdominal scute is 131 mm. long from 

 front to back, near the bridge, and the femoral scute has a length 

 of 85 mm. at the free border. 



The characters revealed by the Sage creek specimen pla 

 it in the genus Testudo. The great enlargement of the epi- 

 plastral lip distinguishes it from all other described species of 

 the genus. Another interesting character is the extreme 

 differentiation of the costals in breadth, an alternation in the size 

 of which is found in a greater or less degree in some species of 

 Stylemys as well as of Testudo. The neurals, as a series, more 

 nearly approach those of Stylemys in shape than those of 

 Testudo, in which there is usually an alternation of octagonal 

 with tetragonal neurals. The first, second, third and fourth 

 neurals and their manner of contact with the three anterior 

 costals are somewhat after the pattern found in Testudo laticunea. 



