HEEPETOLOGY OF JAPAN. 515 



The reasons for the adoption of the generic term Amyda in prefer- 

 ence to Aspidonectis or Trionyx I have advanced in my article on 

 "Generic names of soft-shelled turtles. "« 



To complete the liistory of the name Amyda it may be added that 

 Geoffroy St. Hilaire, in 1809, in the article creating the generic term 

 Trionyx, says that Schweigger, in a manuscript communicated to the 

 French " Institut," had given the name Amyda javanica to the species 

 called Trionyx javanicus by liimself. Tliis reference might suggest 

 to some the propriety of crediting Amyda to Schweigger, 1809, with 

 A. javanica = {cartilaginea) for type. The result, however, will be the 

 same as here arrived at, since the latter species is congeneric with 

 the species above adopted as the type for Oken's Amyda. 



AMYDA JAPONICA i Temminck and Schlegelj. 

 , STJPPON. 



Platfe XXXV. 



1835. Trionyx stellatus Yar.japon[icus] Temminck and Schlegel, Fauna Japon., 

 Rept., p. 32, pi. V, fig. 7; pi. vii (Japan). 



1835. TrionyxjaponicusTv^MMiNCK and Schlegel, Fauna Japon., Rept., p. 139. — 

 Schlegel, Abb. Amph. , 1840, p. 108, pi. xxxi (rivers of southern Jajjan). — 

 HiLGENDORF, Sitz. Ber. Ges. Natur. Fr. Berlin, 1880 p. 112 (southern 

 Japan). — Mitsukuri and Ishikawa, Quart. Jour. Micr. Sci. (n. s.), 

 XXVII, Aug., 1886, p. 17.— Okada, Cat. Vert. Japan, 1891, p. 72 (Kago- 

 shima; Chikugogawa). — Mitsukuri, Zool. Mag. Tokyo, VII, 1895, p. 143 

 (oviposition); Bull. Fish. Bur. Washington, XXIV, 1905, p. 260, pis. i-iii 

 (turtle farm). 



1866. Trionyx schlegelii Martens, Preuss. Exped. Ost-Asien, Zool., I, p. 112 

 (Yokohama) (not of Brandt, 1857). 



The status of the soft-shelled turtles inhabiting Cliina and Formosa 

 {A. sinensis and schlegelii), Japan (A. japonica) and Amurland 

 {A. maachii) has not been worked out for lack of material. Boulenger 

 who unites all three, had apparently no Japanese specimens at hand 

 when he published his catalogue of the Chelonians. Hilgendorf, 

 however, who had both Chinese and Japanese specimens, declares 

 them to be different. He says that the young of A. sinensis, com- 

 pared with Japanese specimens of the same age, have ''a much stronger 

 median dorsal keel and different proportions of length between the 

 broader (basal) part of the ribs and the narrower (apical) end. The 

 basal portion in sinensis is shorter than the apical part, but longer in 

 japonicus.^^ 



My o\\Ti material is none too conclusive, for while I have quite a 

 number of young Japanese specimens I have only one specimen from 

 the mainland and two from Formosa. The Cliinese specimen before 

 me is from the country between Tientsin and Peking, consequently 



a Science (n. s.), XXI, Feb. 10, 1905, pp. 228-229. 



