( 392 ) 



XVI. On tzi'o new Genera of Land Tortoises. By Thomas Bell, 

 Esq., F.L.S. Communicated by the Zoological Club of the 

 Linnean Society. 



Read March 6, 1827. 



In a monograph of the " Freshwater Tortoises having a move- 

 able Sternum," published in the first volume of the Zoological 

 Journal, I took occasion to remark, that it is in the genus Terra- 

 pene, and especially in those species which had been confounded 

 by authors under the trivial name clausa, that we must look for 

 the intermediate iiffinities by which the Freshwater Tortoises are 

 connected with those which inhabit the land. These relations, 

 however, are such as to constitute them a group of the family 

 Emydidce or true Freshwater Tortoises, notwithstanding their 

 habits and structure approach in a certain degree to those of 

 the TestudinidcE or Land Tortoises : and I sought in vain amongst 

 the known species of the latter family for the slightest approach 

 to such a similarity of structure as should point out a relation to 

 the former. 



About two years since, however, I obtained a living specimen 

 of a new species of Tortoise (Kinixys castanea of the present 

 communication), which appeared to possess in several particu- 

 lars the relations of which I was in search. In the depressed 

 form and remarkable lateral expansion of the shell, it exhibits 

 an evident approach to the form of the shell in the genus Emys, 

 whilst the size of the openings for the passage of the feet indi- 

 cate an extraordinary facility and extent of motion. I find con- 

 sequently. 



