204 DR. J. E. GRAY ON A NEW WATER- TORTOISE. [May 14, 



coracoid bones, which I am indined to regard as the most character- 

 istic in, as they are the most peculiar to, the ornithic skeleton, are 

 plainly framed on the true Gallinaceous model. The furculum is very 

 different from that of any other group of birds which I happen to 

 remember, and bears no resemblance to the same bone in the Pha- 

 sianidce or Tetraonid<B. Still less, however, does it indicate any 

 approximation to the same part in the Grails, or I may say of the 

 ColumhidcB, with both of which groups the Sand-Grouse have been 

 supposed to have affinity. From the peculiarities, therefore, of the 

 sternal apparatus I am fully of opinion that Bonaparte, and those 

 authors who have followed him, are quite right in elevating the Sand- 

 Grouse to the dignity of a family (Pteroclidce), though I imagine 

 they were chiefly led to that conclusion by an examination of the 

 external characters only. 



I should have felt it incumbent upon me to have made some re- 

 marks on the information possessed by naturalists respecting this 

 rare and curious bird ; but almost all that can be said on the sub- 

 ject has recently been admirably recapitulated in a paper by my 

 friend Mr. T, J, Moore in 'The Ibis' for last year*. I would, 

 however, observe that though the illustrious Pallas has the credit of 

 first giving a descnption of this bird, he does not appear to have 

 seen more than a single example of it, which was obtained in the 

 Kirghis steppes by Nicolas Rytschkof, and mentioned by him in his 

 Journal f. And of this example, judging from the figure given of 

 it, not only, as Pallas himself says " Cauda in specimme deerat," 

 but it also appears to have lost the elongated portion of the shafts 

 of the outer remiges, which form so singular a feature in the species, 

 and which, as we see by the state of the birds in our Gardens, are 

 no doubt easily broken off. I must be allowed to add that I think 

 this circumstance greatly favours the supposition that the specimens 

 which were obtained in Western Europe in July and August 1859, 

 were not indebted to any human interference for their transport ; 

 for I have had the good fortune to examine all four of them, and 

 each possessed these extraordinary appendages in nearly perfect pre- 

 servation. 



5. On a New Species of Water-Tortoise (Geoclemmys me- 

 lanosterna) from Darien. By Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S., 



V.P.Z.S., ETC. 



The British Museum has just received a very distinct species of 

 the more terrestrial kind of Terrapins, or Freshwater Tortoises, from 

 Cherunha in the Gulf of Darien. 



It is easily known from the other described species by the black 

 colour of the upper and lower surface, and pale-yellowish sides, and 



* The Ibis, 1860, p. 105. 



■\ ' Kirgis-kaisazkoi Stepie, &c. St. Petersburg, 1772, p. 40.' I have not 

 ■been able to see this work, and only quote the reference at second hand. — A. N. 



