Dr. P. L. Sclater on Testudo chilensis. 471 
revious writers, including the authors of the ‘ Erpétologie 
no, the most ordinary book of reference on the Rep- 
tilia. 
Secondly, as to the locality of the two specimens of this 
tortoise received by the Zoological Society, upon one of which 
r. Gray has established his Testudo chilensis. It is true that 
they formed part of a large collection of living animals brought 
to England for sale from Santiago. But these were certainly 
not all natives of Chili; for instance, the Burmeister's Ca- 
riama (Chunga Burmeistert), of which three specimens were 
in the collection, is confined to the provinces of Tucuman and 
Catamarca in the north of the Argentine Republie. Again, 
there were, besides the so-called Testudo chilensis, examples 
of two other tortoises in the collection, neither of which is 
Chilian—-one ( Testudo elephantopus) being probably from the 
Galapagos, and the other (Geoclemmys annulata) from the 
coast of Peru, or Ecuador*. Moreover it is expressly stated 
by all authorities on the subject that no species of tortoises 
at all are found in Chili T. Had any tortoise been more re- 
cently discovered in that country, | cannot doubt that the 
excellent naturalist Dr. R. A. Philippi, the director of the 
Museum of Santiago, who has contributed so largely to our 
knowledge of the Chilian faunaf, would have made the fact 
kno I have very little doubt, therefore, that the speci- 
mens received from Santiago, upon which the so-called Testudo 
chilensis has been established, were either obtained from the 
Argentine provinces on the opposite side of the Andes, along 
with the Burmeister’s Cariamas, or, still more probably, from 
near Buenos Ayres, where the vessel which brought them 
touched on her way from Valparaiso, To make this point 
certain, I have written to Dr. Philippi, and shall, in the event 
of the answer confirming my belief that the tortoise is not 
found in Chili, propose to change its name to Testudo ar- 
gentina, 
* In his A lu to the Catalogue of Shield Reptiles,' recently 
. 29), Dr. Gray gives the “Gulf of Darien ( vin)” as a 
ity for this Terrapin. ere mus some mistake here, as 
the Pacific-coast region of 
- Salvin’s map accompanying Dr. Günther's paper, Trans. Zool. Soe. vi. 
L 53. 
, t Cf. Guichenot, in Gay's * Historia Fisica y Politica de Chile,’ ii. p. 8; 
Bibra, Denkschr. Akad. Wien, v. Abth. 2, p. 127; and Strauch, l.s. c. p. 27. 
1 See his numerous articles in Wiegmann's Archiv, of most of which 
a list is given in P. Z. S. 1867, p. 319. 
