346 AMERICAN TESTUDINATA. Tart II. 



There is something fierce and defiant in the attitude of these Turtles, at the 

 moment they raise themselves to dart at their enemies, or to seize upon their 

 prey. They are as ferocious as the wildest beast of prey ; but the slowness of 

 their motions, their inability to repeat immediately the attack, their awkwardness 

 in attempting to recover their balance when they have missed their object, their 

 haggard look, and the hideous appearance of their gaping mouth, constitute at such 

 times a picture as ludicrous as it is fearful and revolting. Their strength is 

 truly wonderful. I have seen a large specimen of Gypochelys Temrainckii bite 

 off a piece of plank more than an inch thick. They take hold of a stick with 

 such tenacity that they may be carried for a considerable distance suspended to 

 it free above the ground. Their food consists entu-ely of aquatic animals ; fishes 

 and young ducks are their ordinary prey. They lay a considerable number of 

 spherical eggs, from twenty to forty and more, which they deposit not far from the 

 water, in holes which they dig themselves, Avith their hind legs, upon sloping Ijanks. 

 These eggs are rather small in comparison to the size of the animal, about the 

 size of a small walnut. Their shell is not brittle, nor is it as flexible as that 

 of most of the other Turtles. 



SECTION VII, 



THE FAMILY OF CINOSTERNOID^E. 



Under the name of Sternothoarina, Th. Bell has described a group of fresh- 

 water Turtles^ which embraces three distinct types so widely difterent, that, in the 

 present state of our knowledge of these animals, they cannot be arranged together 

 upon any consideration. One of these types is the African genus Sternothserus, 

 which belongs to the Pleuroderes,^ and for which the family name proposed by 

 Bell must be maintained, as a matter of course. The second type is that of 

 the genus Cistudo, which truly belongs to the fiimily of Emydoida?, as will be 

 shown in the next section. The third type embraces the genera Cinosternum, 

 Spix., and Staurotypus, WagL, which are the leading representatives of the fiimily 

 of Cinosternoida?, as chai'acterized below. In the same year in which ■ Bell char- 

 acterized the genus Sternotha^rus, J. E. Gray distinguished also a section in the 

 family of Emydoidae, under the name of Terraphenina,^ which corresponds exactly 



1 Zool. Journ., vol. 2, 182.5, p. 299. = Ann. of Philosophy, 1825, vol. 10, p. 211. The 



- See, above, p. 338, note. name ouglit to be written Terrajienina. 



