42 Chelonia. 



is particularly ri< 

 from the Purbeck beds of Swanage, Dorset, the Chalk, Gault, and 

 Greensand of England, the Maastricht beds of Holland, the 

 Eocene Tertiaries of Harwich, Sheppey, Hampshire, the Isle of 

 Wight, and other localities. 



The last surviving species of Chelonian indigenous to England 

 was the Marsh Tortoise, Hjrnys orbicularis, Linn., whose remains 

 have been found in fluviatile deposits of Post-Pliocene age at 

 Mundesley and East Wretham Een, in Norfolk (see "Geol. Mag." 

 1879, p. 304), once common over a large part of Europe and still 

 living in the South of Europe, in Asia and Algeria. 



Some of the old gigantic land-tortoises (of which a few only 

 survive) inhabited Mauritius, the Seychelles, and other islands 



FIG. 56. Dorsal aspect of the carapace of Platyclielys Oberndorferi (Wagner). Litho- 

 graphic stone ( = Lr. Kimineridgian), Kelheim, Bavaria. ^ nat. size. 



of the Indian Ocean and the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific. 



Like the Dodo, they have been gradually exterminated by the 



hand of man. 



Two fine specimens of a very large extinct land- tortoise 



(Testudo Grandidieri) obtained from Cave-deposits in S.W. 



Madagascar are exhibited in Table-cases, Nos. 20 and 21. 

 Chelonia. The largest of the fossil forms (a restored cast of which is 



ridor No" 5 pl ace d on a stand in the centre of Narrow Gallery No. V) is 

 on Flan. 



