168 Zoological Society : — 



them, showing that the animal could not long have been hatched, yet 

 observes, " L'aspect de la carapace et sa solidite comparee a celle de 

 la boite osseuse de jeunes Pentonyx du Cap semblent prouver que 

 notre individu est adulte" (p. 164). The example figured must be 

 that on which this observation is founded ; for he remarks, " II est 

 unique dans la collection." 



It is probable that Emys Adansonii of Schweigger, the Pentonyx, 

 and more lately the Stemothcerus Adansonii of Dumeril and Bibron, 

 described from a shell in the Paris Museum said to come from the 

 Cape de Verd, is only a half-grown specimen of this species, which 

 is the only Stemothcerus I have seen from Western Africa. 



The specimen in the British Museum from Sierra Leone, which 

 is described in the ' Catalogue of Shield Reptiles' (p. 52) as Ster- 

 nothcerus castaneus, appears to belong to this species. 



II. The head rather short and. broad ; the upper jaw truncated ; the 

 crown covered with an oblong shield {or three smaller shields), 

 with a number of smaller shields over the tympanum, between 

 the hinder outer edge of the crown-plate and the upper edge 

 of the large temporal shields. Notoa. 



Sternoth^rus subniger. 



S. castaneus, Dum. et Bibr. Erp. Gen. ii. p. 401, t. 20. f. I. 

 Head depressed ; jaws pale ; the upper surface of the fore legs 

 with small scales, and a few rather larger ones on the inner sides. 

 Hab. Madagascar. 



Head of S. subniger. 



The specimen in the British Museum, which was received from 

 Paris under the above name, and as coming from Madagascar, agrees 

 well with Dumeril and Bibron' s description and figure ; but they do 

 not describe the small shields on the head, and especially say that the 

 frontal plate is much developed, and that there are no occipital plates. 

 Now, in our specimen the sutures of the occipital plates are well seen, 

 and they are peculiar for being oblong and obliquely placed (so as to 

 leave the sides of the occiput to be covered with small shields), instead 

 of being large and trigonal (as they are in the two other species) and 

 covering all the space on the head to the margin of the temporal 

 shields. 



