Sea gee UT 
I Reptiles of Massachusetts. | 7 
five dorsal, eight lateral, and twenty-five marginal 
plates; these plates are of a greenish brown color, 
strongly marked with concentric and radiating strie. 
A dorsal ridge is formed by the convex portion of 
the superior plates. Sternum composed of twelve 
yellow plates, having upon their posterior lateral 
margins, a large black spot. All the under portion 
of the legs, neck and tail, is red. 
Young specimens exhibit a very rough upper shell, 
produced by the prolongations of the posterior angles 
of the plates. 
This species was erroneously considered by Say, 
as synonymous with the * scabra," Lin.; and as 
such, he catalogued it in the 4th Vol. J. A. N. S. 
E 
STERNOTHAERUS. Bell. 
Generic characters. Head subquadrangular, pyr- 
amidal, covered in front with a single plate; warts 
on the chin; marginal plates, twenty-three ; ster- 
num cruciform, bivalve, anterior valve only move- 
able; supplemental plates contiguous, placed on the 
.Sterno-costal suture; anterior extremity with five 
nails, posterior with four. 
S. odoratus. The mud Tortoise. 
Ann. Lyc. Nat. Hist. N. Y. vol. iii. p. 122, 
aig Harl. Med. and Phys. Res. p. 156. 
Dum. et Bibr. Hist. Nat. des Rept. tom. ii. p. 358. 
N. A. Herpet. v. iii. p. 29, et fig. 
Shell oblong, convex, somewhat carinated on the : 
