16 Dr. J. E. Gray on Testudo chilensis. 



which is open to tlie inspection of the Fellows of the Society 

 and other scientific visitors, and should be communicated 

 especially to the person who is asked to give the name to the 

 animal to be inserted in the secretary's list of accessions pub- 

 lished from time to time in the ' Proceedings.' As both I and 

 others are asked to undertake this office, to save the secretary 

 the trouble of determining for himself the names of the ani- 

 mals, I am often so dissatisfied with the habitat that I obtain 

 with the specimen, that, when I have sent an account to the 

 Society, I have more than once left a blank in the manuscript, 

 that the history of how and where the specimen was obtained 

 might be inserted by the secretary. All this uncertainty 

 would be obviated if an accurate register, such as I have indi- 

 cated, were to be seen at the Gardens. Such a register is kept 

 of all the specimens received into the British Museum ; and 

 as it is made at the time, any inaccm-acy must be occasioned 

 by want of care on the part of the person who communicates 

 the facts. 



Dr. Sclater will perhaps allow me, as an original member of 

 the Society, who has taken a great deal of interest in its ma- 

 nagement, to state that the history of the specimens was for- 

 merly much better recorded when the secretary of the Society 

 was an honorary officer, and it could only have a claim to his 

 leisure, than it is now when we have a liberally paid secretary 

 with a number of paid subordinates under him. 



I consider the above a sufficient answer to his note ; but as 

 his paper contains other observations, I will make a few fur- 

 ther remarks. 



Early in July there were brought to the Museum three spe- 

 cies of tortoises to be named, as is the usual practice with animals 

 of that class. They were particularly interesting to me, and 

 I asked whence they came. On the 7th of July I sent to the 

 Society a communication entitled " Notes on three Species of 

 Tortoises living in the Society's Gardens," in which I stated 

 that " there are at present living two species of land-tortoises 

 and one of a more terrestrial Terrapin, which Mr. Bartlett 

 assures me came direct from Chili." One would have thought 

 that this statement would have exonerated me from the charge 

 of giving a wrong habitat to these tortoises, as I received the 

 account from a subordinate of Dr. Sclater, who, I was informed, 

 was absent on the Continent. As the paper would not be read 

 until its meeting in November, and as it contained a new 

 species, I sent a short diagnosis of the species to the ' Annals,' 

 that there might be no doubt as to the date of its publication, 

 leaving the details of the paper to be read before the Society. 

 Near the end of October, happening to turn over the paper 



