EMYS RETICULATA. (53 



animal in Carolina, and that he furnished a manuscript description of it to 

 Daudin,* under the name it now bears, which has been very generally received 

 by naturalists. In fact, the very specimen from which Daudin took his descrip- 

 tion is still preserved in the Garden of Plants at Paris.t I have no hesitation in 

 putting the Emys reticulata of Say among the synonymes of this animal, although 

 Leconte, Dumeril and Bibron suppose it to refer to the Emys concinna. The 

 very description of Say is sufficient to show the animal he meant: "shell ovate, 

 posterior marginal plates entire, lateral ones beneath with three black spots over 

 the suture; sternum very narrow, elongate and oval.":}: Furthermore, he says,§ 

 the only specimen he ever saw was in the Philadelphia Museum, and that it 

 corresponds well with the figure of Daudin. Besides this, Mr. Peale, the 

 Director of the Philadelphia Museum, shewed me the identical specimen from 

 which Say took his description, on which was marked, in his (Say's) own hand- 

 writing, Emys reticulata. 



* Hist. Nat. des Rept, torn. ii. p. 144. 

 f Leconte, Ann. Lye. Hist. Nat. N. Y., vol. iii. p. 108. 

 J Say, Jour. Acad. Nat. Scien. Phil., vol. iv. p. 204. 

 § Jour. Acad. Nat. Scien., vol. iv. p. 209. 



