34 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES [Psoc. 4ih Sti. 



in Sacramento and that this restaurant was near China Slough 

 which was a backwater emptying into and filled from the Sacra- 

 mento River, 



Mr. J. Charles Jones referred me to the former owner of the 

 restaurant, Mrs. Louis Payen, then living in Latrobe, El 

 Dorado County, California. She writes under date June 5, 

 1905: 



"I can give you very little information about a certain turtle. 

 I cannot remember ever having one of that kind in our posses- 

 sion, but Mr. Payen remembers that some boys had one soft- 

 shell turtle in the street on H between 20 and 21st, front of a 

 saloon. He thinks he was over a foot long, and the first soft- 

 shell turtle he ever saw, and the boys said they got him in the 

 slough near Chinatown, and Mr. Payen does not know what 

 became of him. 



"We sold our restaurant in 1889 and went to France. In 

 returning we moved to 22d St., I and J, and it was after that 

 that Mr. Payen saw the turtle, but he does not know how soon 

 after, but is positive it was not before Jan., 1890." 



Dr. Baur wrote me that he had compared the skeleton of 

 Rivers' specimen with that of P. sinensis and found that the two 

 did not belong to the same species. Notwithstanding this, in 

 1897, I regarded this turtle as probably of Chinese origin, for 

 the skeleton to which Baur referred (except perhaps the skull) 

 was prepared not from the original specimen, but from one of a 

 number of specimens purchased in Chinatown in San Francisco 

 for Mr. Rivers by Mr. W. G. Harford, who at that time was 

 associated with Mr. Rivers in the Museum of the University of 

 California. Regarding these specimens, Mr, Harford wrote 

 me, as follows : — 



Alameda, April 19, 1908. 



John Van Denburgh, M. D. 

 Dear Friend : — 



Relative to the soft-shelled reptile from the Sacramento 

 River, described by Prof. Rivers, I can only state from mem- 

 ory, the following: — On visiting the Chinese grocery at the 

 corner of Dupont and Sacramento Streets, [San Francisco] I 



