SOFT TORTOISES. 23 



Soft Tortoises devour greedily in the African and 

 Indian rivers. In seizing their food, or defend- 

 ing themselves, they dart out their long neck 

 with the sudden rapidity of an arrow. The 

 grasp of their powerful and trenchant beak is 

 sharp and deadly, nor is it relaxed imtil the piece 

 is taken clean out ; and as they are bold and 

 ferocious, they are much dreaded even by those 

 who fish for them. 



Like the Emydes, the Soft Tortoises love to 

 repose on the islets and points of rock, on the 

 fallen trees at the rivers' margins, or on floating 

 logs of timber, whence they drop into the water 

 on the slightest alarm. They swim with ease 

 and swiftness, both on and beneath the surface. 



No species of this Family is found in any of 

 the rivers of Europe. The Nile, the Niger, and 

 the Senegal, the Euphrates, and the Ganges, the 

 Mississippi, the Ohio, and their tributaries, and 

 the great lakes of the St. Lawrence, are the local- 

 ities known to be inhabited by various species of 

 Trionychidce. 



Genus Trionyx. (Geoff.) 



The species belonging to this genus, which in- 

 cludes the majority of those known, are distin- 

 guished by the following characters. The cara- 

 pace is surrounded by a cartilaginous circum- 

 ference, very wide, floating behind, and deprived 

 of bone externally. The hinder part of the plas- 

 tron is too narrow to hide the posterior limbs 

 completely, when the animal draws them up 

 under the carapace. 



The common Soft Tortoise of North America 



