706 EEPTILIA. 



those small, but intimately allied forms, and, moreover, the character does not appear 

 to hold good even among the African species. 



Great stress has been laid on the separation of the pectoral plates of Man- 

 ouria, but as I have elsewhere shown,^ this character is not persistently present 

 in animals undoubtedly specifically identical and referable to the so-called Man- 

 ouria emys, in which the division of the epidermic caudal plate was considered 

 sufficient evidence of this land tortoise being an Emyde. Since I pointed out the 

 variability in the pectoral plates of Testudo emys, I have met with two instances 

 in Testudo elegcms of the separation from one another of the pectoral plates, so 

 that my view that this phenomenon is ascribable to variation, and is not indicative 

 of generic difference in structure, is strengthened. I have never met with a 

 divided caudal in any other land tortoise than Testudo emys, and I have on no 

 occasion found it united in that species. I have here shown, however, that the 

 nuchal plate of T. elongata is occasionally absent, although in the great majority 

 of specimens it is well developed, so that it would also appear that too much import- 

 ance should not be attached to this shield. The absence or presence of a nuchal, 

 the division of a caudal plate, or the separation of the pectoral plates from one 

 another, has each in itself about the same structural significance as the absence of a 

 claw in the fore foot of a Batagur, or the division or non- division of the anal plate 

 of an Ophidian. Underlying these epidermic modifications, we find a perfectly 

 stable osseous frame- work, true to a generic type, common to all those forms I have 

 indicated among land tortoises. 



Testudo elongata, Blyth. 



Testudo elongata, 'Eljih., Journ. As. Soc, Bengal, vol. xxii_, pp. 639-40, 1853 j id., op. cit., vol. xxiv, 

 p. 712, 1855 ; id., op. cit., vol. xxv, p. 448, 1856 ; id., op. cit., vol. xxxii, 1863, p. 83, footnote ; 

 Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc., 1856, p. 181, pi. ix; id., op. cit., 1861, p. 139; id., Ann. and Mag. 

 Nat. Hist., vol. vi, 3rd ser., 1860, p. 218; Giinther, Kept., Brit. Ind., 1864, p. 8; Strauch, 

 Vertheil. Schildkr., 1865, p. 27 ; Theobald, Cat. Eept. Journ. As. Soc., Bengal, vol. xxxvii, 

 ex. No., 1868, p. 9; Journ. Linn. Soc. Zool., vol. x, 1868, p. 6; Descr. Cat. Rept., B. Ind., 

 p. 3, 1876. 



Teltastes elongatus, Gray, Suppl. Cat. Sh. Rept. B. M., 1870, pp. 9, 10 ; App. Cat. Sh. Rept., p. 15, 

 1873; id., Hand-List and Sh. Rept., 1876, p. 6. 



Testudo elongata, Gray, Strauch, Chelon. Stud., 1862, p. 22. 



The male is elongately oval, with straight sides, very slightly expanded at the 

 seventh and eighth marginals, the upper surface of the shell being flat. The anterior 

 surface of the shell is concave over the first and second, partially over the third margin- 

 als, and the caudal plate is produced downwards, slightly below the level of the 

 anals, there being also a flattening of the sides of the last vertebral. The depth of 

 the male through the third vertebral is one-third the length of the carapace. The 

 anal notch is broad, and its margins divergent. The tail of the male is broad at the 

 base, and long. 



1 Proc. Zool. Soc, Lond., 1872, p. 132. 



