HEKPETOLOGY OF JAPAN. 519 



have to be taken into account in all future examinations and compari- 

 sons of Japanese specimens. He says that the price of the soft-shelled 

 turtle in Japan is so much liigher than in China that a regular impor- 

 tation takes place from China to Japan, and that therefore he is not 

 quite sure that the specimen which was shown him there really came 

 from Japan. It is plain then that in order to settle the question of 

 the status of the Japanese Amyda it will be necessary to show that 

 specimens identical with those from China are in reality indigenous 

 to Japan. '^ 



Before leaving tliis theme of the characterization of various forms 

 or species confounded under A. sinensis, I wish to call the attention of 

 future investigators to the somewhat fugitive pattern of the plastron 

 as a possible means of distinguishing the young 2 years old and 

 under. 



Doctor Siebenrock ^ has described such a pattern on six specimens 

 of A. sinensis, from Annam, scarcely a year old: ''Anteriorly in the 

 middle there is an unpaired gular spot, wliich is the smallest or even 

 may be absent. The gular edge, moreover, has a black margin. 

 Furthermore, on the hyo-h^-poplastral interspace there are two spots 

 which usually unite into a short transverse band, and beliind this 

 there is again a large unpaired spot between the xipliiplastra. Lat- 

 erally there is on both sides a spot in the axillary and inguinal regions, 

 one in front of the hyoplastron and another behind the axillary one." 



I find tliis pattern repeated in my Japanese specimens, of which I 

 have a large series, with one very notable exception, viz, there is a sin- 

 gle unpaired median mark on the hyo-hypoplastral interspace, and not 

 two lateral marks separated or united. I refer to Plate XXXV 

 illustrating this series, and it will be noted that instead of "two spots, 

 usually uniting into a short transverse band on the hyo-h^-poplastral 

 interspace," there is a large, unpaired median, triangular or broadly 

 spear-shaped spot on the same interspace. The essential element of 

 this large spot, the largest by far, is the median portion, wliich forms 

 the anterior angle of the triangle, since this part-persists even in cases 

 where the lateral extensions have not been fully developed. The 

 arrangement, consequently, appears to be quite the reverse of that of 

 the Annamese specimens and is not without considerable significance. 



a In this connection it may be well to refer to an observation by Dr. John Anderson, 

 (Zool. Res. Exped. West. Yunnan, I, 1879, p. 792) to the effect that " there are appar- 

 ently two species of Trionyx found in Japan, one corresponding to the supposed fore- 

 going variety of T. stellatus, Geoff., but which is identical with T. perocdlatus. which 

 is the T. sinensis. Wiegm., and which appears to have been more recently redescribed 

 by Brandt under the name of T. sc/i?er/r/t, . . . The other rn'ony.r found in Japan 

 besides T. sinensis, Wiegm., is a form allied to T. javanicus. Geoffr. and which Gray 

 first referred to D. subplana. and which has been figured by Schlegel under the name 

 of T. japonicus. 



&Sitz. Ber. Akad. Wiss. Wien, Math. Naiurw. 01., OXIl, Pt. 1, May, 1903, p. 349. 



