252 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL KIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVII. 



width of the bridge and nearly twice as broad as long ; front lobe 

 truncate and slightly notched in front, hind lobe openly notched 

 behind. Suture between the gular shields a little longer than that 

 between the humerals ; pectorals forming a very narrow band in the 

 middle, their outer border about half the length of that of the 

 abdominals, the median suture between which is as long as its 

 distance from the anterior border of the plastron and once and one- 

 third its distance from the anal notch ; suture between the femorals 

 shorter than that between the anals, which equals that between the 

 numerals ; axillary shield small, ingiiinal large. Head moderate ; 

 beak neither hooked nor notched, feebly serrated on the sides ; 

 alveolar ridge of upper jaw short and feeble ; a large cordiform 

 prsefrontal shield, with a narrow shield on each side between the 

 eye and the rhinarium, followed by a large but somewhat smaller 

 frontal. Fore limb with 5 claws, with 4 longitudinal series of 

 large imbricate, rounded scutes in front ; a large, claw-shaped 

 tubercle on the back of the thigh. Shell yellowish brown, with 

 irregular and ill- defined blackish blotches; soft parts dark brown, 

 the scutes on the fore limb blackish at the base, the claws pale 

 horn- colour, blackish at the base. 



The single specimen, stufied, appears to be a female. Its 

 measurements are as follows : — 



Length of shell 



Width 



Depth „ „ 



Length of plastron 



,, ,, front lobe of plastron 



„ ,.. hind „ ,, „ 



Width of bridge 



Length of head 



Width „ „ 



280 mm. 



180 



130 



220 



60 



66 



110 



48 



37 



This Tortoise was found at Manjil, between Eesht and Kasuin, 

 South Coast of the Caspian Sea, on a hill-side about 7,000 — 7,500 

 feet, by Captain P. A. Buxton, and presented to the Bombay 

 Natural History Museum by Capt. C. M. Ingoldby. 



it is very closely related to T. ibera, Pall., and T. zarudnyi, 

 Nikolsky, both of which are inhabitants of Persia, but it is easily 

 distinguished from them by the divided supracaudal shield and the 

 extremely narrow pectorals. 



I am not certain whether T. zarudnyi deserves specific-recognition; 

 at any rate the characters pointed out by Siebenrock (1909^ are 

 worthless. A specimen from Zirkuck, E. Persia, received from the 

 Petrograd Museum in 1899 as T. zarudnyi has the first vertebral 

 shield a little broader in front than behind, the third vertebral 

 not broader than the third costal, and the posterior margin of the 

 carapace not more strongly serrated than in some individuals of 

 T. ibera. 



