7 
708 DR. J. E. GRAY ON INDIAN TORTOISES. [Nov. 1, 
2. TEsTUDO ELEPHANTOPUS. (Plate XLI.) B.M. 
Testudo elephantopus, Harlan, Journ. Acad. Nat. Se. Phil. v. 
284, t. xi. (bad). 
Testudo planiceps, Gray, P. Z. 8.1853, p.12; Cat. Sh. Rept: p. 6. 
Testudo californica, Férussac, Bull. Sci. Nat. 191. 
Testudo nigra, Quoy & Gaim.; Frey. Voyage Zool. i. 174, pl. 40 ; 
Meyen, Nov. Acta Akad. Leop. Carol. xvii. 188, t. xiii. 
Geochelone schweiggeri, Fitzinger, Wiener Sitzungsberichte, x. 403 
(1853). These are probably all synonyms of this species. 
Shell and animal black. Head with one pair of frontal and a 
square crown-shield, with a flat crown. Thorax oblong, rather de- 
pressed, black; shields irregularly concentrically grooved ; areola 
central. The beak slightly keeled in front and slightly bidentate. 
The fore legs covered with rather large scales, with a spur-like 
tubercle on the inner side of the elbow-joint ; hind legs covered with 
numerous small scales, with larger scales on the soles, those on the 
hinder margin being prominent; fifth vertebral shield as broad as 
the two caudal and two hinder marginal shields. 
This species is exceedingly like Testudo indica, but is distinguished 
from it by the flatness of the crown and the absence of a nuchal 
plate. Length over the back 10 inches; width 93 inches. The 
sternum truncated in front; gular plates small; pectoral plates 
narrow ; anal plates small, notched behind. 
There are two young specimens and several shells of a black 
Tortoise in the British Museum without any nuchal plates, which 
have hitherto been recorded as varieties of 7. indica. They are all 
without any special habitat, and therefore may be from Chili. 
This species is probably the Elephant-Tortoise of the Galapagos 
Islands, Testudo elephantopus, Harlan, who described his specimen 
as having “‘ twenty-three marginal scutes—that is, having eleven on 
each half of the shell and a single one posteriorly.”’ I also think, 
from the flatness of the head in the living animal, that the skull I 
figured under the name of 7 planiceps is of this species. This I 
formerly doubted, because there was a specimen in the Zoological 
Society’s Gardens, said to come from the Galapagos Islands, which 
had a very convex forehead, like the Indian specimens ; but perhaps 
the habitat in this case was a mistake, or might not have belonged 
to the example which I examined. 
4. Descriptions of two new Tortoises from India, in the Col- 
lection of T. C. Jerdon, Esq. By Dr. J. E. Gray, 
F.R.S. &e. 
Mr. T. C. Jerdon has kindly sent me for examination the Tortoises 
which he collected in various parts of India. The collection consists 
of :—I|st. Batagur thurgi; showing that the shell of this Tortoise, 
which has usually been classed with Hmys, has a contracted front 
and hind margin of the cavity of the shell, as well as the masticating- 
