1870.] DR. J. FE. GRAY ON NEW TORTOISES. 707 
Testudo mauritanica, Démoussy, Deser. de la Confédération Ar- 
gentine, ii. 38. 
Hab. Chili (Weisshaupt); N. Patagonia (D’ Orbigny) ; Mendoza 
and the Pampas (Burmeister) ; Monte Video and Buenos Ayres 
( Démoussy). ; 
Beak keeled in front and strongly bidentate. Shell depressed, 
oblong; middle of the back rather flattened, dirty yellow; areola 
central; nuchal plate distinct ; marginal plates shelving, with a very 
short keel; front and hinder marginal plates reflexed, making a ser- 
rated edge ; head with one pair of supranasals ; a hexangular (central) 
and two triangular frontal plates between the eyes, with some small 
shields between them and the supranasals, and a pair of elongated 
occipital plates ; fore legs with a large spur at the elbow-joint, and 
numerous conical spines on the underside of the thighs, two of which 
are larger than the rest. The scales in front of the fore legs very 
large, unequal, convex. 
This species is very like T. suleata from Abyssinia in colour and 
general appearance ; but the shell is much more depressed, and the 
marginal shields, which in that species are very high, with a sharp, 
narrow keel beneath, are in this species only moderately high and 
very sharply keeled. The pectoral plates are narrow towards the 
centre, and gradually spread out in a triangular shape, one-third 
from the centre; while in 7’. swl/eata these plates are narrow and 
linear for two-thirds of their width and then suddenly expand into a 
pentangular disk. In this species the last vertebral shield is the 
width of the caudal, and one-half of the last and one-half of the last 
but one of the hinder marginal shields, whereas in 7. suleata it is 
only the width of the caudal and one-half of the last hinder marginal 
shields. 
The reception of specimens of Testudo elephantopus and T. chi- 
lensis direct from South America, and the power of comparing them 
with specimens of Testudo indica from Seychelles and other localities 
in the Old World, and with Testudo sulcata from Africa, have been 
very important, as by the comparison of the actual specimeus of these 
animals together it has been distinctly proved that, instead of the 
same species inhabiting the Old and the New World (which was an 
anomaly among the Testudinata), these species, which have been re- 
garded as the same, are perfectly distinct ; indeed Testudo sulcata 
from Africa is not only distinct from 7. chilensis, but the two species 
belong to two different subgenera, the one belonging to the Old and 
the other to the New World. The only other instance, of which I 
am aware, of a land-Tortoise being supposed to be common to the 
two continents, is a species of Kinizys, which was first received from 
Demarara and Guadeloupe, but which is now known to be an African 
genus ; and the specimens must have been taken to Demarara by some 
ships from Africa; for I am informed that it is not even colonized, 
much less naturalized, in that country ; but it is probable that some 
of the negroes who are fond of living animals may have taken them 
with them. 
