394 Mr. Bell 07i two new Genera of Land Tortoises. 



Some time after I had received the living specimen of which 

 I have spoken, my friend Mr. J. E. Gray showed me two spe- 

 cimens of another species, very closely allied to the former, and 

 having exactly the same peculiarity of structure. These were 

 presented by Sir Everard Home to the British Museum, and 

 have received from Mr. Gray the specific name of Homeana. I 

 have now in my collection a third specimen of the latter species. 



To the genus thus constituted, I have applied the name Ki- 

 NixYS, from xit/ico moveo, and <fùj lumbus. 



The other genus, which it is the object of this paper to de- 

 scribe, possesses also one peculiarity which is interesting in a 

 similar point of view, as exhibiting a further affinity, or possibly 

 only an analogical relation, to the Box Tortoises, although itself 

 strictly belonging to the terrestrial family. From a careful ex- 

 amination of the Tortoises with a moveable sternum, and a com- 

 parison of them with every other group, I was convinced that 

 wherever either of the transverse sutures of the bones composing 

 the sternum is exactly adapted to the transverse division of the 

 sternal scuta, there is no bony union of the two portions, and 

 the moveable sternum consequently exists ; and that such a 

 structure could be thus ascertained, even in dried specimens, 

 where the parts had become completely fixed. 



This opinion I was led for a time to consider erroneous, in 

 consequence of examining the shell of a new species of Tortoise, 

 evidently of the terrestrial form, and belonging therefore to the 

 Testudinidce. This specimen had lost the anterior lobe of the 

 sternum ; and from the appearance of the fracture, it was obvi- 

 ous that the suture of the bone and the junction of the humeral 

 and pectoral plates had existed exactly at the same line : and as 

 no such structure as that of a moveable portion of the sternum 

 had ever been found to belong to any Tortoise of a similar ge- 

 neral conformation, I believed that this fact was probably fatal 



to 



