THE GEOGRAPHIC TURTLES. 71 



he made his first description and figure. Le Sueur seems 

 not to have published a description, with name, of the sec- 

 ond species. That he finally concluded they were distinct 

 species is shown by his manuscript name cited in the syn- 

 onymy of M. geographicus by Dumeril and Bibron. 



J. E. Gray published the name Emys lesueuri for the 

 small-headed species in 1831, but afterwards concluded 

 (wrongly) that he had redescribed Le Sueur's species, and 

 in 1844 (Cat. Tortoises, etc., Brit. Mus., 21) gives his 

 own name as a synonym of M. geographicus, Le S. 



Both turtles are common in the Wabash river at New 

 Harmony, the home for some time of Thomas Say, yet 

 this naturalist recognized but one species in his paper on 

 the fresh-water and land tortoises of the United States. 



Dr. Harlan (Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phil., 1827) gives 

 a brief description under the name Emys geographica 

 which applies to either species. 



The elder Le Conte recognized two forms, but after de- 

 scribing them (Ann. Lye. Nat. Hist. N. Y., in, 1828- 

 1836, 108-111), he remarks, " there are not sufficient dif- 

 ferences between the two to constitute them separate spe- 

 cies." 



Dumeril and Bibron (Erp. Gen., n, 1835) unite the two 

 forms as one species, yet on page 259, we read "la tete 

 est plate, elargie ; le museau, court, nrrondi ; les machoires 

 sont tres fortes, a surface convexe, a bords droits, extrcme- 

 ment tranchans et sans la moindre dentelure," from which 

 it would seem that the head of M. geographicus alone was 

 described. On page 260, M. leseueri is indicated by a 

 mention of forms in which the dorsal plates are tubercu- 

 late. Gray's name is placed among the synonymy. 



Holbrook gave, perhaps, the best account of the two 

 species that has been published in this country. 



De Kay evidently did not know the species well. His 



