364 



CHELONIA 



CHAP. 



Propagation takes place in the summer, the long oval hard- 

 shelled eggs being laid in June and July. 



The TYPICAL LAND-TORTOISES are easily recognised by their feet. 

 The digits are short, have not more than two joints, and are 

 without any trace of webs ; the metacarpals are scarcely longer 

 than broad. The hind-feet are club-footed. The skin on the 

 anterior side of the fore -limbs is covered with strong horny 

 scales, frequently with dermal ossifications. The plastron is 

 united suturally by a broad bridge with the usually strongly 

 arched carapace. The skull has complete postorbital and 



temporal arches. The top of the head 

 is covered with shields. The tail is 

 short. There are only a few recent 

 genera, modifications of the central and 

 typical genus Tcstudo. The latter is 

 cosmopolitan in the warmer temperate 

 and tropical regions, except rn the 

 Australian and Austro-Malayan countries. 

 Cinyxis (Fig. 82) with a few species 

 in Tropical Africa from the Gambia and 

 from Abyssinia to the Equator is re- 

 markable for the unique modification of 

 its carapace, the posterior portion of 

 Fig. 81. Skull of Testudo which is movable, the hinge passing 

 SaS^^SSSl? 1 ^ between the seventh and eighth marginal 

 M, maxillary; Op, Opis- and the fourth and fifth costal plates, 



thotic ; Pr.f, prefrontal ; n -i -i ,1 .,1 t 



Pr.o, prootic; Pt:f, post- externally behind the seventh marginal 

 frontal; Q, quadrate ; s.o, an d the second costal shields. In the 



supra-occipital. .-IT, i i 



middle of the back the hinge is im- 

 perfect, the parts being merely flexible enough to permit the 

 posterior half of the box to be closed. The head is covered 

 with shields. 



0. belliana, of Northern Tropical Africa, has a small nuchal 

 shield, and the margin of the carapace is smooth. Length of 

 shell up to seven or eight inches. C. homeana, of West Africa, 

 has likewise a small nuchal shield, but the posterior portion of 

 the carapace descends vertically, and the marginals are strongly 

 reverted and serrated. C. erosa (Pig. 82), also from West Africa, 

 has no nuchal shield ; the marginals are reverted and serrated, 

 but the posterior part of the carapace is sloping, and the anterior 



