THE ZooLocist— NoveMBER, 1875. 4683 
curved. Coracoid not anchyclosed to scapula. Humerus very 
stout, with the shaft trihedral in its whole length, and without 
hollow behind the head. 
C. The Rodriguez Tortoise—The remains from Rodriguez 
which I have hitherto examined, and for which I am indebted to 
M. Bouton and to the trustees of the Glasgow Museum, consist of 
fragments of the cranium, perfect cervical vertebre, pelvis, and the 
larger leg bones. They indicate one of the best marked species of 
the entire group, with a double alveolar ridge, and with the neck 
and limbs of greater length and slenderness than in any other 
species. The neural arch of the sixth nuchal vertebra is per- 
forated by a large ovate foramen on each side close to the anterior 
apophyses. These perforations were closed by membrane in the 
living animal, and evidently caused by the pressure of the -apo- | 
physes of the preceding vertebra, the animals having had the 
habit of bringing the neck in a vertical position, so that these two 
vertebre were standing nearly at a right angle. Some of the bones 
are exceedingly large, larger than any of those from the Mauritius, 
and must have belonged to individuals of the size of our large 
living male from Aldabra. 
II.—RouND-HEADED Type: T7. indica: 
To this type belong all the specimens with a nuchal plate which 
have been deposited in British collections within the last forty 
years, or which elsewhere have been described or figured; and 
more especially the tortoises from Aldabra. Whether all these 
specimens have come from this small group is impossible to say, 
as we know very little or nothing of their history. Although I 
have succeeded in bringing together a considerable number of 
specimens, from which it would appear that also in this much 
smaller division several races could be distinguished, I think it 
best to defer, for the present, the detailed publication of the results 
of my examination, which ere long may be supplemented or modi- 
fied by important accessions. 
In conclusion we may ask whether the facts which I have endea- 
voured to place before the readers of ‘ Nature’ are more readily 
explained with the aid of the doctrine of a common or manifold 
origin of animal forms. 
The naturalists who, with Darwin, maintain a common origin for 
