CHAPTER THIRD. 



NORTH AMERiaVN GENERA AND SPECIES OF TESTUDINATA. 



SECTION I. 



GENERAL REMARKS UPON THE NORTH AMERICAN GENERA AND SPECIES OF TESTUDINATA. 



In submitting the North American Testudinata to a renewed critical revision, 

 my object is chiefly to show, that, among the representatives of this order, there 

 are many genera on this continent which have thus far escaped the notice of 

 herpetologists. It is no part of my plan to describe anew the species which have 

 already been so well characterized and so fully illustrated by Major LeConte^ and 

 Dr. Holbrook.^ It Avill be sufficient, for the object I have in view, simply to 

 enumerate them, to characterize briefly those which may easily be confounded with 

 others, and to insert such additional information as I may have collected respect- 

 ing their eggs, their young, the variations of their colors, and their geographical 

 distribution. With reference to the specific names of the North American Testu- 

 dinata, it will be observed that I have not always followed the nomenclature now 

 generally received. Whenever I w^as led to adopt other names than those in 

 common use among modern herpetologists, it was only done with immediate regai'd 

 to the inflexible law of priorit}'; and I have availed myself, in this respect, of 

 the information I could obtain from the correspondence of Linnanis with Dr. 

 Garden," of Charleston, who provided the great Swedish naturalist with so large 

 a number of the animals of South Carolina, described in the Systema Naturae. 



I can hardly expect that the new genera I have characterized in this revision 



' LeConte, North American Tortoises, in Ann. ' A Selection of the Correspondence of Linnaeus 



Lycenm Nat. Hist, of New York, vol. 3. and other naturalists, from the original manuscripts. 



^ IIoi.nnooK, North American Herpetolniry. Phi- By Sir James Edward SMirn. London, 1821-2, 



ladelphia, 1812, 5 vols. 4to. 1 vol. 8vo. 



