214 REPTILES OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



Cistuda. Fleming. 



Generic characters. Shell gibbons, strong ; marginal-plates 

 twenty-jive; sternum oval, covered with twelve plates, bivalve, 

 both valves moveable on the same axis, and joined to each other 

 and to the shell by ligamento-elastic tissue ; anterior extremi- 

 ties with jive, posterior with jour nails. 



C. Carolina. Edwards. The Box Tortoise. 



Shaw's Gen. Zoology, vol. iii. pt. 1. p. 36, et fig. 



Ann. Lye. N. Y. vol. iii. p. 1*24. 



Harlan's Med. and Phys. Res. p. 149. 



Bum. et Bibr. Hist. Nat. des Rept. torn. ii. p. 210. 



Bell, monog. Test. 



I have received living specimens of this species through the 

 kindness of friends from Barnstable, Amherst, New Bedford, 

 Holmes Hole, and Walpole ; and although at neither of these 

 places is it common, yet their distances from each other shows 

 that it is pretty widely distributed throughout the State. This 

 is a land species, being found in dry and arid situations, and 

 can live but a short time in the water. From the circumstance 

 of the sternum being divided into two portions, the anterior of 

 which is moveable, enabling the animal when disturbed, to 

 encase itself entirely within its shell, the species is generally 

 known under the name of " box tortoise." Several varieties 

 have been made by naturalists dependent upon the difference 

 of their markings. 



A beautiful living specimen before me exhibits the following- 

 characteristics : 



Length of the specimen, six inches. Shell round, gibbous, 

 carinated. Sternum bivalvular. The plates of the upper shell 

 are of a dark brown color, sculptured with radiating and con- 

 centric strice, and covered over their entire surface with bright 

 yellow spots, varying in their size, form, and manner of distri- 

 bution, frequently confluent. A great portion of each mar- 

 ginal plate is occupied by a yellow blotch. The first and fifth 

 vertebral plates, are pentagonal ; the second, third and fourth 



