266 



certainty, for the distinctions pointed out by this illustrious naturalist ; since 

 subsequent discoveries and observations have shown, that the habits of 

 these animals do not always accord with the forms of their feet. Thus 

 the curious box-like tortoise, T. Carolina, Linn. ; T. clausa, Bosc, though 

 possessing the feet supposed to belong to the river tortoise, often wanders 

 up into the country : whilst that of Japan, which is organized, in this 

 part, like the sea tortoise, has the habits of the river tortoise. 



The hard, bony, and sometimes, perhaps, the scaly covering of these 

 animals, are the only parts which can be expected to be preserved in a 

 mineralized state. But these can so very rarely yield any marks distinctive 

 of species, that any attempts to make out specific differences in these 

 fossil remains must in general be fruitless. 



M. Knorr gives the representation of a fossil tortoise, from a very 

 valuable specimen in the possession of Dr. Gesner, found near Claris. 

 The matrix is a black schist, in which the form of the animal appears to 

 be very strongly marked. Towards the superior extremity, traces of 

 the head are discoverable ; and a little on one side the marks of one of 

 its feet extended, and somewhat resembling that of a frog, are also 

 observable. 



The back part of a fossil tortoise has been found in the Isle of Malta, 

 Bocconi Mus. dijisic. et d'experienza, pag. 181. Gesner also mentions the 

 back part of a tortoise having been found in a quarry near Berlin, De 

 petrifactis, p. 86; and in the Museum of Dresden was a portion of a fossil 

 shell of a tortoise, seventeen inches in length and about five inches wide. 

 Some fossil remains found in Aix, in Provence, and which had for some 

 time served to perplex the oryctologists, who had been doubtful whether 

 they should consider them as remains of human skulls, or of nautili, 

 were determined by M. Delatour-d'Aigue, M. Adanson, and M. Lama- 

 non, to be the fossil remains of the tortoise, Journal de Phys. T. xvi. 

 p. 468. Fossil remains of these animals have also been found in the 

 neighbourhood of Melsbroeck, near to Brussels, Oryct. de Bruxelles, par 

 Francois Xavier-Burtin. From an examination of these last-mentioned 



