Dr. J. E. Gray on a new Species of Pelomedusa. 99 



panded, nearly horizontal ; the vertebral plates broader than 

 long, the fourth the largest, with five even sides. 



Hab. N. Australia; Upper Victoria, in Beagle's Valley. (Mr. 

 Macgillivray.) 



" Native name, ' Billyraurry.' It was caught with grass- 

 hoppers, and the stomach contained Pandanus-%Qedi%." 



The gular shield in both the specimens is narrow, elongate, 

 extending down between the front edge of the second pair of 

 sternal shields. 



This species is at once known from the former by the form of 

 the nodulose keel on the vertebral plates, and by the dentated 

 hinder margin, as well as by the absence of the nuchal shield. 



X. — Notice of a new Species 0/ Pelomedusa /rom Natal. 

 By Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S. &c. 



Hitherto there have been only two species of Pelomedusa re- 

 corded — one from the Cape of Good Hope, which has been 

 long known, and the other from Abyssinia, where it was dis- 

 covered by Dr. Edward Riippell ; and they are so distinct from 

 one another in the form of the ventral shield that each has been 

 considered the type of a distinct subgenus, viz. Pentonyx and 

 Pelomedusa. The British Museum received from Mr. Sargeant, 

 the Commissioner for Natal in the International Exhibition, 

 two specimens of the genus from Natal. They belong to the 

 same subgenus, and are very like the species from the Cape ; 

 yet they seem to offer characters which mark them as distinct 

 species, or at least very distinct local varieties. 



In the Cape species, or Pelomedusa suhrufa, the head is mode- 

 rate (but they seem to vary in its size, perhaps in the two 

 sexes), and there are only a few small scales between the hinder 

 outer edge of the crown-shield and the upper edge of the temple- 

 shield, and the front one of these scales is over the middle of 

 the temple-shield. 



In the Natal species, which may be called Pelomedusa nigra, 

 the head is larger and more depressed, and there are several 

 scales between the outer hinder edge of the crown-shield and 

 the temple-shield; and the front scale of the series is narrow, 

 and in the front part of the suture near the orbit which separates 

 these two shields. 



When I published the 'Catalogue of the Shield Reptiles,' 

 (1855, p. 53), I separated a specimen which I had obtained 

 from Mr. Warwick, as a variety of P. suhrufa, thus : " Black, 

 grey-spotted; shields all with close, rather granular, radiating 

 ridges and concentric grooves ; areola small." I am now in- 



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