Miscellaneous. 291 



Higg-ins." Shortly afterwards I received uncoloured proofs 

 of forty-six plates ; of these, plates Ixxv. to cvii. are lettered, 

 the remainder are unlettered : the lettering of the first eighteen 

 informs the public that they were drawn in 1867 and published 

 1868; the nineteenth di-awn 1868, published 1868 ; the twen- 

 tieth and twenty-first drawn 1867, published 1868 ; the 

 twenty-second to twenty-seventh drawn 1868, published 1868; 

 the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth drawn 1868, published 

 1869 ; the four remaining lettered plates drawn 1868, pub- 

 lished 1868 ; so we are to believe that thirty-one of the thirty- 

 three plates Avhich Felder himself calls " provisional " in 

 August 1869 Avere published in 1868. So far as can be 

 ascertained from London publishers, the part containing these 

 plates is actually not to be had at the present time, and lepi- 

 dopterists are beginning to doubt whether it will ever appear 

 at all. When these things are considered, what must of 

 necessity be the feeling with regard to the second part of the 

 same work, of Avhich British lepidopterists at least saw nothing 

 until 1867, but which bears the date 1865? 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Notes on Australian Freshivater Tortoises. 

 By Dr. J. E. Gbay, F.E.S. &c. 



The British Museum has received a series of freshwater tortoises 

 belonging to the family Hydraspida?, from Mr. Krefft. They are 

 preserved iu spirit, and were obtained from Burnett's River. 



Chelymys macquaria. 



There are six specimens, of different ages, which I believe belong 

 to this species, in the collection. They aU. agree in having a lead- 

 coloured head, with a broad white streak from the middle of the 

 hinder part of the orbit to the upper front margin of the tympanum, 

 and a similar rather broad streak from the angle of the mouth to the 

 underside of the tympanum. 



In general the gullet and throat below this line are white, but in 

 some they are more or less varied with lead-colour. The thorax in all 

 the specimens is much more oblong and convex than in the specimens 

 received from Segou, in the Macquarie River ; but they vary both 

 in the outline of the thorax and in the convexity of the back very 

 considerably. The smallest is the broadest, with the back of the 

 shell much elevated in the centre. Indeed no two of the specimens 

 are ahke iu form and convexity, which induces me to believe that 

 they aU belong to one very variable species. 



