122 Species of North American Tortoises. 



at the hook, and is therefore very troublesome to anglers ; it 

 takes hold of the bait very gently and draws it slowly to the 

 bottom of the water, and is frequently several minutes before 

 it seizes it in such a manner as to allow of its being taken. 



14. Testudo odokata. 



Testa tevis, gibba, plus minus carinata, saepe dorso plana, 

 nigra, scutis vertebralibus imbricatis. Sternum ssepius antice 

 mobile ; postice profundissime emarginatum ; scuto scapulare 

 parvo. Caput subacuminatum : brachia tribus plicis vel squa- 

 mis magnis anterioribus ; cauda simplici. 



Testudo glutinata, Daudin, and T. pensylvanica sterno im- 

 mohili, Schoepff. 110. tab. xxiv. fig. B. are the same. Cistudo 

 odorata, Say, loco citato. SternothcBvus odoratus and Boscii 

 Bell, Zool. Journ. No. VII. Kinosternon shavianum, ejusd. 

 ibid. Tert^apene odorata and Boscii, Merrem. Mud tarapin of 

 the southern states. 



Shell gibbous, more or less carinate, oblong-oval, generally 

 not emarginate behind, black or dusky, mixed and clouded 

 with brown, sometimes with a few radiating lines of the latter 

 colour on the lateral plates. Vertebral plates imbricate be- 

 hind, the first long, narrow, and triangular, with the apex point- 

 ing backwards, and truncate, the second, third, and fourth hex- 

 agonal, the anterior angles rounded, the lateral acuminate, the 

 fifth triangularly-pentagonal ; lateral plates large, pentagonal, 

 except the first which is four-sided, with the lower face round- 

 ed ; intermediate marginal plate small, subtriangular, the rest 

 oblong, forming a narrow border which is separated from the 

 lateral plates by a deep groove as far as the tenth ; the tenth 

 and eleventh wider than the rest, continuous with the last late- 



