Species of North American Tortoises. Ill 



marked with concentric lines of dusky, wings striped with the 

 same. Skin black, top of the head with a straight yellow 

 line reaching from the top of the nose to the middle of the 

 cranium, a parallel shorter one on each side, and another 

 shorter and oblique one, reaching from about the middle of the 

 orbit of each eye to the one on the middle of the head ; be- 

 hind each eye is a'curved yellow spot, which becomes a line 

 towards the back part of the head, and joins a straight red 

 line which runs down the back of the neck ; upper jaw, cheeks, 

 and neck, striped with yellow, the stripes on the last becoming 

 red as they approach the head ; above the hinder part of the 

 upper jaw is a conspicuous yellow spot : lower jaw, chin and 

 throat yellow, all of them striped with black, the stripes on the 

 last in pairs and conduplicate. Legs and tail scaly, striped 

 with yellow : claws yellow, with a black spot at the base of 

 each. 



Length six inches, height two inches. 



A younger one was more gibbous ; the first vertebral plate 

 simply pentagonal ; shell without any paler marks, except on 

 the marginal plates ; lateral plates with concentric striae. 



Inhabits Lake Erie and the western rivers ; was first described 

 by M. Le Sueur in the Memoires du Museum d'Histoire 

 naturelle Ann. 8 fasc. iv. p. 267 — 268. He seems to con- 

 sider the variety a as his T. geographica, and the other variety 

 as a distinct species ; yet the figure in the Journal of the Aca- 

 demy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, agrees better with 

 this latter ; neither of them, however, has the tail annulate 

 with yellow. There are not sufficient differences between the 

 ivi% to constitute them separate species : I have examined a 

 considerable number of both, but never found one that was 

 ecarinate. 



Vol. III. 15 



