32 CHELONIA MYDAS. 



observed by Bruce, is probable enough, but with us all the Green Turtles that 

 have ever fallen under my observation appertained to one species, the Chelonia 

 mydas; this animal however varies much in shape at different epochs of life: the 

 carapace is broader in the young, and the vertebral plates are then more 

 extensive transversely, as in the Chelonia virgata. They vary also exceedingly 

 in colour, so that of hundreds that I have frequently seen together scarcely two 

 could be selected of precisely similar colours; some were marked as above stated; 

 others were darker; some with the shell radiated with dark or with light brown; 

 others had an olive hue; while in the old animals a remarkable tinge of green 

 prevailed over the whole superior surface of the body; and some young specimens 

 I have seen marked with colours similar to the Chelonia imbricata, and nearly as 

 beautiful; so that colour alone, as in the Cistuda Carohna, is here insufficient to 

 distinguish species. 



