1872.] DR. J. ANDERSON ON MANOURIA AND SCAPIA. 139 



his suborder Tylopoda as distinguished by the caudal shields being 

 united into one, but at the same time refers Manouria to it. This 

 genus he distinguishes by its widely separated pectorals, and places 

 it in a section which he designates Manourina and Manouriana, 

 thus venturing, from such imperfect materials as two Malayan spe- 

 cimens in "a bad state" and one of them "deformed," and one 

 Australian example of the Tortoise, to settle questions of classifi- 

 cation*. It seems to me, after a careful consideration of these 

 variations, that they admit of no other explanation than that which 

 I have offered. 



I removed the skull of the type of Testudo phayrei ; and on com- 

 paring it with the figure given by Dr. Gray of the skull of Scapia 

 falconeri, I have failed to detect any characters by which to separate 

 the two as distinct species, far less as distinct genera. This seems 

 to me, to quote Dr. Gray's own words, to be "one of those instances 

 which ought to teach naturalists caution in determining species without 

 the examination of all the parts of the animal, the skull as well as 

 the thorax " f ; for here is the skull of T. emys placed in one genus, 

 and its shell bandied about from genus to genus, and the mutilation 

 of this unfortunate Tortoise even carried to the extent of its head 

 being placed away from its body in one section of the Testudinidce 

 and its thorax and sternum allocated to another. 



The history of the skull of so-called Scapia falconeri is now well 

 ascertained, my predecessor Blyth having distinctly stated that he 

 made over the second example of his T. phayrei to Dr. Falconer to 

 examine, as Dr. Falconer had expressed his opinion that T. phayrei 

 displayed a special affinity to his huge Siwalik fossil Tortoise, the 

 Colossochelys atlas. The thorax and sternum of this specimen are 

 still in this museum ; but the skull which Dr. Falconer took away 

 with him for further examination, and forgot to return, was made 

 over conditionally to the British Museum by Dr. Falconer's executors, 

 and figured by Dr. Gray and named by him Scapia falconeri. I now 

 send a series of figures of the skull of the other specimen of T. phayrei, 

 which is considerably larger than the example Dr. Falconer examined. 

 To facilitate comparison, the figures represent the same views of the 

 skull as those depicted by Dr. Gray of Scapia falconeri. Beyond a 

 few unimportant differences, due to individual peculiarities and the 

 different ages of the specimens, the two skulls are identical. 



Dr. Gray says that the skull of Manouria fusea is distinguished 

 from that of S. falconeri, the general form of which it somewhat 

 resembles, by its more slender and weak zygomatic arch ; but, on 

 turning to Dr. Gray's description of the genus Manouria, it is 

 obvious that his only acquaintance with the skull of M. fusca was 

 obscured by the skin of a stuffed specimen, and that he has never 

 directly handled the bones of the skull ; so that little weight can be 

 attached to such observations. 



I propose now to describe the species T. emys from living specimens, 

 and to indicate what appears to be the synonymy of the species. 



* Suppl. Cat, Shield Eopt. p. 31. t Ibid. p. 7. 



