BY J. DOUGLAS OGILBY. 9 
Length to at least 8-feet. (Nine feet fide McCoy.) The 
mounted example in the Queensland Museum measures 
7 feet 8 inches. 
Although typically belonging to the fauna of the tropics 
this turtle straggles far into temperate seas; it has been 
recorded from both sides of the English Channel, from the 
Cape of Good Hope, etc., and nearer home from the coasts of 
Victoria and New Zealand. 
The specific name and the colloquial names “‘ Leathery 
Turtle ” or “ Leather-back ” have been given to this species 
because the body is covered with a thick leathery skin which 
completely envelopes the bony exoskeleton. Its food consists 
principally of fishes, mollusks, and crustaceans. The flesh 
of this turtle is not eaten. 
Sup-orDER II. THECOPHORA. 
Dorsai vertebre and ribs immovably united and expanded 
into bony plates forming a carapace. Parietals prolonged 
downwards. forming a suture with the pterygoids or separated 
from the latter by the interposition of the epipterygoid— 
Boulenge:—. (@yjxy a box ; dopéw, I carry.) 
Superfamily a. CRYPTODIRA. 
Neck bending by a sigmoid curve in a vertical plane. 
Pelvis not ankylosed to the carapace and plastron. Digits 
with not more than three phalanges. A complete series of 
marginal bones connected with the ribs. (xpumros, hidden ; 
Seon, neck.) 
Family B. CHELYDRID®. 
THE ALLIGATOR TERRAPINS. 
Shell covered with epidermal horny shields ; carapace 
comparatively small, with serrated posterior border ; plastron 
small and cruciform; pectoral shields widely separated 
from the marginals ; abdominal shields not in contact on the 
median line, separated from the marginals, which are twenty- 
three in number, by a series of inframarginals. Chin with one 
or more pair of small dermal appendages. Digits moderately 
elongate, webbed; phalanges with condyles; claws four’ 
Tail long, crested above. Fluviatile and palustrine. (xéAvs, 
a tortoise ; vdpa, a water-snake.) 
North America, east of Rocky Mountains, ranging 
southward into Ecuador ; New Guinea; ? Australia. 
