48 ' EMYSHIEROGLYPHICA. 



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 backwards; the brachial 

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

 extensive; the thoracic plates are quadrilateral, and narrow in the antero-posterior 

 direction; the abdominal are hexagonal and broad; the femoral and sub-caudal are 

 irregularly quadrilateral and large. Of the supplemental or connecting plates, the 

 axillary is elongated and quadrilateral, the inguinal is triangular. 



The head is remarkably small and narrow; the snout a little pointed; the nostrils 

 are in front, and near together: the eyes are large, and placed near the snout; 

 the pupil dark, the iris golden. The upper jaw is slightly emarginate in front; the 

 lower, furnished with a small tooth. 



The anterior extremities are long, with a row of large square ■folds of skin along 

 the superior border of the forearm, beginning at the humerus; the anterior surface 

 of the forearm is covered with large scales, the posterior surface, with smaller; the 

 carpus is broad; the fingers five in number, and palmated, furnished with five nails; 

 the three intermediate ones are straight, and of great length; the posterior extre- 

 mities are long and very flat; the tarsus and metatarsus greatly expanded; the 

 toes are remarkably palmated, and furnished with four long nails. 



Colour. The whole superior surface of the shell is dark brown, and is subdi- 

 vided by broad yellow lines into spaces of various shapes and sizes, each space 

 being occupied by narrower concentric lines of the same colour. The marginal 

 plates have each a broad yellowish band extending through the middle in a vertical 

 direction; at each extremity of the plates are yellow spots, and one or more semi- 

 circular lines of the same colour; these meeting with the lines of the adjoining 



