THE HABITS OF MALAY REPTILES. 187 
rice, frogs, fruit, and green vegetables whee ем gren 
They lay rather large, oblong, blunt- ended, w eggs, 
three, xS s many a s five at a time, which ede Ads in ^ peus 
The shell i is enia tubi hard for a reptile's egg, and the eggs, 
two inches m are very large for the size of the tortoise. 
he large land-tortoise, Testudo emys, does not occur in 
Singapore, iori is not very rare in Perak, especially in the Din- 
dings, and is said to occur in Penang also. got a very fine 
female at Telok Sera, in the Dindings, which laid two eggs 
shortly after 1 got it. They resembled those of the box-tortoise, 
but were larger, This tortoise ok in the drier parts of the 
woods, and does not seem to care about water at all. It eats 
all kinds of leaves voraciously. 
Several kinds of snapping-turtles (7rionyx) are recorded 
from the peninsula, but the commonest is 7'rionyz cartilagineus, а 
very large flat turtle, the shell of which i is covered with a lea- 
g 
hese turtles usually live in tidal rivers, but reed get 
into ponds. "They rarely leave the water, but may be seen push- 
ing up their heads above the surface from time to mé. One 
was caught in tne ditch by the Museum some years ago, and was 
transferred to the Gardens' lake, where it eventually became 
асе tra Ned ied destroyed. Though these animals are pro- 
perly carnivorous, they seem very fond of boiled rice, and the 
ones in the en lake used always to come and feed off the 
rice put down for the water fowl, and those in MEAE are = 
for the most part on boiled rice made up in bal The Chin 
the tortoise, 
dragon and phoenix being the fi Уң three animals іп the world 
when it was created. They catch or buy as many tortoises of 
