Ill 



EMYS HIEROGLYPHICA.— i/o/6/ooZ. 



Plate XVII. 



Characters. Shell oval, depressed, ecarinate, smooth, entire in front, elon- 

 gated and imperfectly serrated behind; sternimi oblong, emarginate posteriorly, 

 dingy yellow; head very small; upper jaw shghtly emarginate, lower jaw fm-nished 

 with a tooth. 



Description. The shell is oblong-oval, very flat, smooth, ecarinate, entire in 

 front, and imperfectly serrated behind. The first vertebral plate is urceolate; the 

 second and third are hexagonal, the former with its anterior, the latter with its 

 posterior margin, concave; the fourth vertebral plate is very irregularly hexagonal, 

 with the lateral angles prolonged; the fifth is heptagonal. The first lateral plate is 

 irregularly triangular, with the basis rounded, and joined to four marginal; the 

 second and third are hexagonal, with an acute angle above, received between the 

 vertebral plates; the fourth is pentagonal. The marginal plates are twenty-five 

 in nmiiber; the nuchal, or intermediate, is nearly a parallelogram, the anterior is 

 irregularly quadrilateral, with its anterior and external angle projecting beyond 

 the second, which is also very irregularly quadrilateral, with its posterior and 

 internal angle much elongated. The remaining marginal plates are all nearly 

 quadrilateral; the posterior and external angle of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh 

 project so much as to give a serrated appearance to the shell. 



The sternum is full and entire in front, emarginate behind; the gular plates are 

 regularly triangular, the apex of the triangle directed backAvards; the brachial 

 plates are irregularly quadrilateral, the outer margin being rounded and most 



