132 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [May. 1914. 



The Brahmins attached to the shrines are in the habit of 

 inviting pilgrims and other visitors to feed the turtles with 

 sweetmeats made of parched rice and palm-sugar. To attract 

 them these men, having first sprinkled some of the sweetmeats 

 or even a little rice on the surface of the water, call out re- 

 peatedly, standing on the steps round the tank, " Gopal, ao! 

 Gopal, ao! " Sometimes the animals thrust their heads out 

 of the water, swim towards the edge and devour the food 

 provided ; but they often decline to make an appearance. They 

 are less shy in doing so at dusk than by daylight. 



The Brahmins at the shrine tell a confused story of a man 

 called Gopal, who annoyed Juggernath by his laziness. The 

 god therefore turned him into a tortoise and made him carry 

 bricks (or stones) on his back. The actual mud-turtles living 

 in the tank are believed to be in some way identified with 

 Gopal, but the Brahmins confess that they breed regularly, 

 laying their eggs on the far side of the tank in the rainy 

 season. 



Dr. B. L. Chaudhuri informs me that there is another tank 

 in Orissa in which tame Trionyces are kept. It is situated 

 near Sambalpur in the interior of the country. The Brahmins 

 refused him permission to take away any of the turtles on any 

 consideration, but they probably belong to the same race as 

 Puri ones, for this race is found in the river Mahanaddi at 

 Sambalpur. 



The pool at Mandalay in which mud-turtles are kept is in 

 the famous Arrakan Pagoda. It is much smaller than the tank 

 at Puri and entirely surrounded by buildings. Many of 

 the turtles (all of which apparently belong to a single species, 

 Trionyx formosus, Gray) are deformed and some of them are 

 considerably larger than any specimens of their species pre- 

 served in museums. They come when called, and eat curry 

 and rice thrown into the water. They are tamer than those 

 at Puri. 



From a zoological point of view the Mahommedan mud- 

 turtles of Chittagong are much the most interesting of those we 

 know to live in shrines, for they are the only living individuals 

 of Trionyx nigricans, Anderson that have been seen of recent 

 years, and H is quite possible that the species is extinct except 

 in a condition of optional captivity. The Chittagong Mud 

 Turtle, as Anderson's species may be called, was described by 

 him in 1875 and was then said to be found in " the Chittagong 

 tanks." It was almost completely lost sight of until I dis- 

 covered in the Indian Museum the skeletons of the specimens on 

 which the original description of the species had been based. 

 These I redescribed in 1912. ' As Anderson's account of the 



I Op. tit., p. 164, pi. V, fig. 5. 



