200 ON TESTUDO EMYS 



Anderson tried to get some more specimens and succeeded 

 in this attempt by the aid of Capt. Butler, who procured 

 him three living specimens and two shells from one loca- 

 lity in Assam. Only one of these specimens had a concave 

 sternum and in this specimen also the pectorals were sepa- 

 rated from one another ; whilst in the four other specimens 

 with flat sterna the pectorals formed a suture together. 

 From this, Anderson concludes that Manouria fusca and 

 Testudo Phayrei are one and the same species » indicating 

 two types of variation (one characteristic of the flat, the 

 other of the concave sterna) ; the former being a suture 

 of variable intensity in the middle line, the second a 

 pectoral plate of variable development between the middle 

 line and a short distance internal to the inner margin of 

 the axilla." Anderson is inclined to think that these last 

 specimens with concave sterna are the males , and states 

 that no specimen with flat sternum (which he thinks to 

 be the females) as far as he knows off has the pectoral 

 plates wholly apart. Supported by the authority of Dr. 

 Günther ') that Manouria fusca is the same species as 

 Testudo emys Schleg. & Mull., Anderson brings both T. 

 Phayrei and M. fusca to T. emys and concludes his inte- 

 resting article with a description of this species based on 

 the living specimens he had got from Assam. 



Anderson's opinion as to the synonymy of the three 

 named species has been accepted by most of the later wri- 

 ters on this subject; f. i. the late Dr. Strauch takes the 

 same view where in his »Bemerkungen über die Schild- 

 krötensammlung" he writes^): »denn einerseits hat Ander- 

 son nachgewiesen dass die so eigenthiimliche Stellung der 

 Pectoralplatten nur den Mannchen von T. emys Mull, & 

 Schl. zukommt, wahrend bei den Weibcheu diese Platten in 

 der gewöhnlichen Weise in der Mittellinie des Brustschil- 



1) Anderson, I.e. p. 138, and Günther, Rept. Brit. India, 1864, p. 10. 



2) Bemerkungen über die Schildkrötensammlung im Zoologischen Museum 

 der Kais. Acad. d. Wissensch. zu St. Petersburg, 1890, p. 12. 



.N'otes from the Leyden museum. Vol. XVII. 



