170 MATTHEW— RECENT DISCOVERIES OF 



broad head, and in some other characters approaches the alHgator. 

 It is closely allied to the alleged Central American species C. moreletli. 



The most interesting of the reptiles is a giant tortoise resem- 

 bling in several respects the living species of the Galapagos islands. 

 It has a very thin shell, like most of the species of oceanic islands, 

 but aside from this, which is probably due to parallelism, it shows 

 some other points that are suggestive of a true relationship, 

 although not a close one. It has one or two points suggestive of 

 relationship to the South American tortoise T. tabulata, but mostly 

 differs widely from it. Comparison with the fossil tortoises of the 

 North American Tertiary does not indicate any special relationship, 

 although it may be regarded as a descendant of some species of this 

 group. It has one very curious character, unique in so far as I 

 have made comparisons, in that the margins of the horny shields 

 are marked on the plates not by furrows but by sharp, raised crests 

 over the greater part of the carapace. This alone would forbid any 

 close relationship with any of the species I have compared. 



Leidy named this species Testudo cnhensis in 1868, from a 

 broken plate of the carapace that had been sent to him. 



The terrapin is probably identical with the living Cuban terra- 

 pin, which is regarded by some as a distinct species, by others as a 

 subspecies of the yellow-bellied terrapin C//ryi'(»;;;3'.y (or Trcc/j^^wzy^) 

 scripta (=scabra) of the southeastern states. It is at all events 

 closely related, and belongs to a group which has several fossil rep- 

 resentatives in the Pleistocene of Florida and other states of the 

 southeast. 



Some fragmentary remains of lizards, snakes, birds and am- 

 phibians occur in the collections, but have not yet been studied. I 

 doubt whether very much of interest can be got from them, as they 

 seem to be very doubtfully identifiable. 



Hayti, Jamaica and the smaller islands are as yet unexplored 

 territory. Except for the Amhlyrhiza of Anguilla and a few frag- 

 ments described by Dr. Miller from an Indian kitchen midden at 

 S. Pedro de Macoris, in Hayti, nothing is known of their extinct 

 fauna. Limestone caves are numerous, and will undoubtedly fur- 

 nish important finds in the near future. A primitive sirenian, Pro- 

 rastomiis, was described many years ago by Richard Owen from the 



