C H A P T ]^ R SECOND. 



THE FAMILIES OF TESTUDINATA. 



SECTION I. 



GENERAL REMARKS UTON FAMILIES. 



For many years past, naturalists have extensively indulged in the practice of 

 separating, as natural divisions, any group of genera, or even single genera, which 

 appeared to differ strikingly from other genera, and of calling such divisions, 

 families, without apparently caring to ascertain upon what characteristics they 

 were founded ; nay, frequently without even assigning to them any characters at 

 all, remaining for the most j^art satisfied with naming such families.^ It is, how- 

 ever, not enough to select some prominent genus, and give to it a patronymic 

 ending, in order to establish the right of any natural group to be considered as 

 a family. The result of this j^rfictice, as it now lies before us, has been to 

 incumber the nomenclature of Zoology with innumerable names ending in idee 

 or ince. For, regardless of every question of priority, the names of families and 

 sub-families should end in that way, according to certain writers. 



As no advantage can be derived, from such a method, to the real advance- 

 ment of science, I have proceeded upon an entirely different plan in this work. 

 After a most minute and careful comparison <jf all the Testudinata I coidd obtain, 

 and having made myself familiar, as far as I could, with all their features, I 

 have arranged them, according to their diHorent degrees of relationship, into as 

 many natural groups as I could recognize, and then only attempted to find out 



' Naturalists wlio in no way deserve this impu- tioning names. A mere glance at my " Nomen- 

 tation will pardon me if, to avoid useless personal- clator Zoologicus " will show to what extent this 

 ities, I allude to the prevailing evil, without men- method of making families has been carried. 



