172 



Upper jaw with the beak projecting downward, notched or not. Choanse 

 between the eyes. Skull without a bony temporal arch. Digits with 

 short or no web. 



Shell with traces of a keel, rounded aVjove ; no bridge. 



Carolina, p. 172. 

 Shell without traces of a keel, flat above ; a distinct bridge. 



ornata. Appendix. 



Cistuda Carolina, (Linn.). 

 Box Tortoise. 



Teetudo Carolina, Linnseus, 1758, 64., x, 198 ; Cishido Carolina, Gray, 

 1831, 113, 18; Holbrook, 1842, 54, i, 31, pi. 2; Bjulenger, 1889,84, 

 115; Cistudo virginea, Agassiz, 1857, 4, h 445, pi. iv, flgs. 17-19. 



Shell broadly oval, sometimes four-fifths as wide as long ; high and 

 very convex ; extremely solid. On at least the posterior part of the 

 carapace are evidences of a keel; this in the young quite distinct. 

 Margin of the carapace sloping rapidly upward from transverse hinge of 

 the plastron. Plastron large, tightly closing the opening of the carapace, 

 consisting of two lobes movable on each other and the carapace. The 

 bridge entirely abolished ; no axillary or inguinal scutes. The plastron 

 rounded in front and behind. Head of moderate size, the snout not 

 projecting; upper jaw with the cutting edge drawn down in front into a 

 hooked beak, the hook not notched ; the alveolar surface narrow. The 

 lower jaw turned upward at the tip. Limbs and feet scaly, especially the 

 anterior. Claws stout ; the web between the digits narrow. Tail short. 

 Scutes sometimes very smooth, sometimes showing distinctly the concen- 

 tric lines of growth. 



The colors of the carapace are yellow and brown or black. Sometimes 

 the darker color predominates, sometimes the yellow. Usually the ground 

 is brown or reddish brown, while the yellow appears as spots of various 

 shapes ; often radiating from the point of growth of the scute. The 

 ground color may appear to be yellow, relieved with black spots. The 

 plastron is variously ornamented with black and yellow. The young 

 have a single yellow spot on each of the scutes of the carapace. The 

 head, neck, limbs, and tail are brown, with numerous spots of yellow and 

 orange. Often the scales of the fore-legs are especially bright yellow. 



The length of the carapace is about 4 or 6 inches in full grown ex- 

 amples. 



This tortoise is distributed from New England to the Gulf and westward 

 to Texas. It inhabits the whole of Indiana, and appears to be especially 

 abundant in the southern portion. New Harmony (Sampson's coll.) ; 

 Brookville (Hughes and Butler) ; Monroe county (Bollman) ; Terre Haute 

 (Nor. Sch. coll.) ; Lafayette and Westfield (F. C. Test) ; Jefferson, Mar- 

 shall, and Marion counties (Hay); Wabash county (C. Ridgley). 



