APPENDIX TO THE CATALOGUE OF SHIELD EEPTILES. 



former and present curators of that museum, who know 

 better their rules and manner of conducting the institution." 

 — Gray, P. Z. S. 1871, pp. 515, 516. 



Test ado Phayrei was described by Mr. Blyth from two 

 specimens in the Museum of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta. 

 When he saw the specimens of Manouria fused in the Mu- 

 seum he regarded them as the same species ; and on this 

 authority I placed Testudo Phayrei as a synonym of that 

 species in the Supplement to the Catalogue (p. 15). 



Mr. Theobald in the ' Catalogue of the Eeptiles in the 

 Museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal ' places one of Col. 

 Phayre's specimens under the name of Manouria emys, but 

 without referring to Testudo Phayrei of Blyth, and, according 

 to the authority of Dr. Anderson, he entered the " perfect 

 typical one " under the name of Testudo indiea from the 

 Galapagos Islands. Mr. Theobald acknowledges this state- 

 ment to be correct, and that it arose from " culpable haste" 

 (see P. Z. S. 1870. p. 675). 



On comparing the skull we received from Dr. Falconer 

 with the head of Manouria fusca (with which it agreed in 

 general form) I pointed out that the former differs in having 

 a broad well-developed zj'gomatic arch, the arch in Manouria 

 fusca being slender and weak. On this Mr. Theobald and 

 Dr. Anderson (who believe that Dr. Falconer's specimen 

 was the skull of one of the typical specimens of Testudo 

 Phayrei) discovered that Messrs. Blyth and Theobald had 

 been in error when they regarded Testudo Phayrei as the 

 synonym of Manouria fusca. 



Dr. Stoliczka, in the ' Annals and Magazine of Natural 

 History ''for September 1871, p. 212, states '-'that there is 

 no generic or specific difference traceable between his [Dr. 

 Gray's] figure of S. Faleoneri and the skull which Dr. 

 Anderson had extracted from the smaller type specimen of 

 Blyth's Testudo Phayrei. I do not think that the identity of 

 the two (Scajiia Faleoneri, Gray, and Testudo Phayrei, Blyth) 

 can be questioned for one moment." 



Dr. Gray, in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural His- 

 tory ' for November 1871, p. 320, states that he gladly adopts 

 " the previous specific name, and shall henceforth call it 

 Scapia Phayrei. This is very satisfactory to me, proving 

 the skull to belong to a species that has never come under 

 my observation in a more perfect state, and at the same 

 time shows that Mr. Blyth and Mr. Theobald made a great 

 mistake when they confounded it with Manouria emys : " 

 he further observes, this " fully confirms my belief that the 

 skull belonged to a very distinct form of Tortoise, which 

 had not come under my observation in a more perfect 

 state." 



Dr. Anderson has figured the shell, especially the sternum, 



of Testudo Phayrei to show that it was a distinct species 

 from Manouria emys, with which Mr. Blyth had con- 

 fused it. Dr. Anderson appears since (for I am informed 

 that he has read a paper at the Zoological Society, not yet 

 published or seen by me) to have adopted Mr. Blyth's 

 opinion, and attempted to prove that Testudo Phayrei and 

 Testudo emys are varieties of the same species, and, there- 

 fore, not distinct genera as I had made them, and that con- 

 sequently Testudo Phayrei was long before published under 

 more than one other name. If this is the case, and the 

 pectoral plates in the various specimens of Testwlo emys 

 vary so much in shape and position that I was induced to 

 regard them as two genera, it is an entirely new fact in the 

 history of Land-Tortoises. Hitherto the form and position 

 of these plates have proved to be very constant characters 

 for the difi'erent species. I by no means deny that this 

 difference may occur in certain species ; but the fact, so con- 

 trary to our general experience, should be established on 

 very good evidence, and done by a person in whom we 

 can place reliance, not liable to be influenced by preconceived 

 theories. 



The skull described as Scaj>ia Faleoneri is no longer in 

 the British-Museum collection, for the reasons assigned in 

 the following correspondence (p. 10). 



The skull only became important after it was described 

 and figured, and so became the type of a genus ; for it re- 

 mained in Dr. Falconer's hands for many years and in tho 

 Museum from 1867 without being reclaimed ; but after it 

 was figured, Mr. Blyth, Mr. Theobald, and Dr. Anderson 

 thought that the skull might be that belonging to a speci- 

 men in the Museum belonging to the Bengal Society, which 

 had been absent for more than twenty years. The various 

 accounts they give of this skull are very confused, and would 

 be amusing if it did not show the little attention they had 

 bestowed on the specimens belonging to the collection, and 

 how treacherous the memory becomes. At Dr. Falconer's 

 death the Zoological Department received from Mr. G. E. 

 Waterhouse, the Eeeper of the fossils, as a present from 

 his executors, the skulls of a man and of six common mam- 

 malia from various countries (three of them without the 

 lower jaws), and the skulls of nineteen reptiles, the ske- 

 leton of the common Greek Tortoise and the jaws, and the 

 young specimen of a Shark. They were all without any 

 habitat or any history attached to them, and were generally 

 in a poor condition ; indeed they were of so little value, 

 that if they had been offered me originally I should have 

 declined them, especially if I had heard the conditions ; but 

 as they had been accepted with other specimens and trans- 

 ferred to the Zoological Department, they were retained. 



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