Species of North Ameincan T'ortoises. 99 



holes in the earth, with a considerable hillock at the mouth. — 

 They rarely venture out, except at night ; their food is chiefly 

 vegetable, and they commit great depredations in the fields of 

 sw^eet potatoes, and in gardens when they can effect an en- 

 trance. Their strength is prodigious ; one will easily walk 

 with a man upon his back, and it has been said that they can 

 support a weight of six hundred pounds. It is not difficult to 

 tame them, and children will sometimes after rendering them 

 docile, harness them to small wagons, and make them draw 

 them about. The flesh is eatable, and they are often sold in 

 the markets. 



I have little doubt that this is the original Testudo Carolina 

 of Linnaeus. His description is — " pedibus digitatis, testa 

 gibba, Cauda nulla," (Linn. Sys. Nat. Edit. xii. p. 36 L) From 

 so short and imperfect a notice, it is difficult to draw any cer- 

 tain conclusion, and his quotation from Gronovius of " testudo 

 pedibus digitatis, calloso-squamosis, testa ovali subconvexa, 

 scutellis planis striatis, medio punctalis," is as inapplicable to 

 this species as to the Emys clausa, which by most authors 

 is considered as synonymous with Linnseus's T. Carolina, and 

 seems to me rather to suit the T. Muhlenhergii of Schoepff. — 

 But he likewise quotes Seba's Thesaurus, L tab. LXX. fig. L 

 for a representation of his animal, where is found a very large 

 species, said to come from Curassoa, which, as far as a judg- 

 ment can be formed from the extremely ill executed plates of 

 that heavy work, very much resembles the Mungofa. As for 

 the country it is said to come from, nothing can be drawn from 

 this against our position, for Seba is very inaccurate in noting 

 the native countries of the animals which he possessed. But 

 Gmelin, in his detailed description, certainly had before him 

 this tortoise, for he says, " caput subobtusum squamis callosis 

 obtectum, scuti incisura anterior lunata, margo acutus, scutella 

 lata, plana, margine striata, medio excavato-punctata ; sternum 

 anterius truncatnm, posterius hifidum :" the scaly head, which 

 is peculiar to this species, and the shape of the sternum, for- 



