THE LAND TORTOISES AND TERRAPINS 2427 



whether a pond is numerously tenanted by these tortoises. In captivity, where they 

 will live for years, pond tortoises, in addition to their natural food, will readily eat 

 raw meat; and in this state they frequently become so tame as to take food from the 

 hands of their masters. The eggs, varying from nine to fifteen in number, are laid 

 at night during May in hollows dug by the female in dry soil, at a considerable 

 elevation above the bank, where they are carefully covered up and left to (fevelop. 

 These tortoises are eaten by the inhabitants of all the countries in which they occur. 



The remaining members of this extensive family, which may be col- 

 lectively known as terrapins, and can receive but brief mention, have 

 the plastron without any transverse hinge, and firmly connected by bone with the 

 carapace, so that the whole shell is solid and immovable. They comprise a large 

 number of species, arranged under eleven genera, and all that can be attempted in a 

 work of the present nature is to select for special notice one or more species of such 

 genera. Although many of these terrapins are exceedingly unlike one another ex- 

 ternally, yet they are all so closely connected that the genera can only be dis- 

 tinguished by the characteristics of the skull and the bony plates of the shell, so that 

 our description must of necessity be somewhat technical. 



The sculptured terrapin (Clemmys insculpta) of Eastern North 



America is selected as a fairly well-known representative of a genus 

 Terrapin 



of eight species. This genus, it must be premised, forms one of a 



group of four agreeing with the two last noticed in the absence of a longitudinal 

 ridge on the fore part of the palate, and in the carnivorous habits of its various 

 members. From the three allied genera, Clemmys may be distinguished by the 

 aperture of the inner nostrils in the skull being situated between the eyes, by the 

 unpaired entoplastral bone of the lower shell being traversed by the groove formed 

 by the junction between the humeral and pectoral shields, and by the upper part of 

 the head being covered with a continuous smooth skin. The figured species belongs 

 to a group of five, characterized by the median union of the anal or hindmost 

 shields of the plastron being longer than that between the femoral shields; and 

 while four species of this group are confined to North America, Beale's terrapin (C. 

 .bealei} inhabits China, thus showing a distribution analogous to that of the alliga- 

 tors. On the other hand, the Caspian terrapin (C. caspica], ranging from the Cas- 

 pian Sea to the Persian Gulf, the Spanish terrapin (C. kprosa) of Spain and North- 

 western Africa, and the Japanese terrapin (C. japonica] resemble one another in 

 having the median union of the anal shields shorter than that of the femorals. The 

 sculptured terrapin, which attains a length of about seven inches, is specially char- 

 acterized by the toes being webbed only at their bases, by the upper jaw having a 

 notch in the middle, on the sides of which are a pair of tooth-like projections, and 

 by the serration of the hinder border of the carapace. The shell is much depressed, 

 with a raised keel down the middle of the back, and the shields of the carapace 

 ornamented with the radiating and concentric striae from which that species takes 

 its name. While the ground color of the carapace is blackish, the radiating lines 

 are yellow, the plastron being yellow, with a large black blotch on each of its 

 shields. The soft parts are dark brown or olive, the sides of the head being 

 speckled with red. The figured species is exceedingly abundant on the Atlantic 



