ON BRITISH FOSSIL REPTILES. 163 



of the bones of the buckler, especially of the sternum, we may discern an affi- 

 nity to Testudo. 



Assuming that the Chelonite here described may be identical with that of 

 which the carapace from Mr. Crow's collection is figured in the ' Ossemens 

 Fossiles*,' the 'Emys de Sheppey' of Cuvier will be one of the ' Synonyms' of 

 the present species. Mr. Gray, in his ' Synopsis Reptilium,' has given Latin 

 names to all the fossil reptiles indicated or established by Cuvier, and has 

 called the ' Emys de Sheppey ' ' Emys Parkinsonii,' referring as representa- 

 tions of this species, not to the figure of the carapace above cited, which may 

 belong to the same species as the present Emys, but to the figure of the 

 plastron, copied by Cuvier from ' Parkinson's Organic Remains,' and to the 

 figure of the skull in the same work, both of which most unquestionably be- 

 long to the genus Chelone and not to the genus Emys. 



The ' Emys Parkinsonii ' of Mr. Gray is a synonym of my Chelone longiceps. 

 Cuvier's name, — which, besides the claim of priority, is the honest result of 

 labour devoted to the elucidation of its subject, — if rendered into Latin would 

 be Emys toliapicus ; but as the species to which it refers may not be the one 

 here described, and is not the only freshwater tortoise which the clay of 

 Sheppey has yielded ; and since the characters of the present species have 

 not, hitlierto, been defined nor its affinities to the land-tortoises been pointed 

 out, the interests of science, it appears to me, will be best consulted by naming 

 the present species Emys testudiniformis. 



The fossil here described is from the Eocene clay of Sheppey Island, and 

 forms part of the collection of J. S. Bowerbank, Esq. 



Platemys Boiverbankii, nob — Another specimen from the same rich col- 

 lection of Sheppey remains actually indicates a distinct species of the fresh- 

 water family of Chelonia, which from its more depressed figure, its size, and 

 the general form of the sternum, most probably belonged to the Platemydian 

 division of that family f. 



The sternum is 13 inches in length and 10 inches in breadth ; it is 

 broader before than behind, rounded in front, notched behind : the surface 

 is nearly flat, slightly convex at the anterior part, and as slightly concave 

 behind. 



The lateral bony wall or ala uniting the plastron to the carapace is 5 inches 

 in length or antero-posterior extent, and it commences 3 inches behind the 

 anterior extremity of the plastron. The episternals meet in advance of the 

 entosternal, the length of the suture joining their anterior extremities, being 

 7 lines : from the peripheral end of this suture to that of the suture between 

 the episternal and hyosternal bones is 2 inches 6 lines : from the latter suture 

 to the anterior concavity of the lateral wall is 5 lines. In a tortoise with a 

 plastron 13 inches long, the length of the same suture was 1^ inch, and the 

 suture between the episternal and hyosternal bones is nearer the lateral wall. 

 The Emydes, especially Emys {Platemys) depressa, most resembles the fossil, 

 especially in the more important character of the relative length of the lateral 

 wall and suture. 



The carapace presents the same conformation and regularity of size of the 

 vertebral plates and ribs as in the Emys testudiniformis ; but it is flat, even 

 slightly concave along the middle tract ; and has somewhat narrower verte- 

 bral plates, of which the third to the eighth may be distinguished in the fos- 

 sil ; the ninth being concealed by the union of the vertebral extremities of 

 the 7th pair of expanded ribs. 



* Ed. 1824, vol. V. part ii. pi. xv. fig. 12. 

 t Ilydraspk, Bell and Gray. 

 M 2 



