38 Records of the Indian Museum. [Voi,. VIII ^ 



EMYDOSAURIA. 



I. Gavialis gangeticus (Gmel.). 



Boulenger, Fauna, p. 3. 



Although no specimens of the Gharial were obtained, Mr. 

 Kemp tells me that it is not uncommon at Kobo together with the 

 Gangetic Porpoise {Platanista gangetica). Apparently the short- 

 nosed Crocodile {Crocodilus palustris) does not make its way so far 

 up the Brahmaputra, although it occurs between Mangaldai in the 

 Darrang district and Gauhati. 



CHBLONIA. 



2. Kachuga tectum (Gray). 



Boulenger, Fauna, p. 43; Cat. Chelonia Brit. Mus., p. 58; 

 Siebenrock, Zool. Jahrb. Jena, 1909, suppl. x, p. 454. 



A shell and skull of the genus Kachuga were obtained from 

 the Dihang R. below Pasighat and must be referred to this species. 

 The shell, however, which measures 2ry cm. in length, is narrower 

 than is usually the case, and Mr. Kemp tells me that the soft parts 

 were deep olive in life without reddish marks of any kind. Pos- 

 sibly the specimen represents a local race, but I have examined 

 apparently typical individuals of K. tectum from N. E. Assam. 



The limits of the range of K. tectum are very imperfectly 

 known. It has been recorded from several localities in central 

 and western India and certainly occurs in many different parts of 

 the river-systems of the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra. All 

 specimens, however, that I have examined from central India, 

 although several were labelled K. tectum, actually represented 

 K. interm,edia, a very closely allied and somewhat variable form that 

 is common all over the Mahanaddi river-system and also in the lower 

 reaches of the Godavari. I have recently seen large numbers of 

 this form from Cuttack and Sambalpur in Orissa and find that the 

 proportions and outlines of the neural plates are so variable that 

 little reliance can be placed on them in separating the •' species " 

 from K. tectum. The skulls of the two forms are identical. The 

 only constant feature of difference is therefore colouration, and I 

 am inclined to think that the late Dr. Blanford ^ was right in re- 

 garding K. intermedia as being only a 'Wariety" (or, as I would 

 prefer to call it, a subspecies) of K. tectum. The true K. tectum 

 also occurs, according to Siebenrock, in Cochin China, P(?wgs/mm 

 cochinchinensis , Tirant,^ being synonymous. 



Mr. Kemp tells me that he could hear of only one land-tortoise 

 having been seen during the Expedition and that it was not 

 secured. Terrestrial Chelonia hibernate in northern India, but no 

 species has as yet been recorded from the Himalayas. 



1 J.A.S.B., (2) xzxix (1870), p. 339, and xlviii (1879), p. no. 

 » Etudes Div. Miss. Pavie, iii, p. 494 (1904). 



