712 EEPTILIA. 



In eating, the head is held downwards, and the animal appears to be incapable 

 of feeding when the head is raised. The front legs are much used to push the food 

 into the mouth. 



This species is very prevalent in Lower Burma, and it ranges southwards 

 through Tenasserim, eastwards to Cambodja, and northwards to Arracan, and there is< 

 this curious fact connected with its distribution, that it occurs also at Chybassa, in 

 Singhbhum, on the table land of India, in the district of Chota Nagpur, from 

 whence I procured specimens from Colonel Dalton. 



It may probably extend from Burma through Assam and along the Terai 

 region to the west, as Major Kinloch informs me that on one occasion he found a 

 tortoise alive in the Terai at Julpaigorie, and which he identified with a drawing 

 of this species which I showed him. In Upper Burma its place is taken by 

 T. platynota. 



This species is known to the Burmese as the Laik Nahhouga, or red-nosed 

 tortoise, and in Arracan it is called the hill tortoise. 



Testudo platynota, Blyth. 



Testudo plaiynotus, Blyth, Journ. As. Soc, Bengal, vol. xxxii^ 1863, p. 83; Theobald, Journ. Linn. 

 Soc., vol. X, 1868, p. 7; Journ. As. Soc, Bengal, ex. No., vol. xxxvii, 1868, p. 9; Descr. Cat., 



Rept., Brit. Ind., 1876, p. 2. 

 Testudo elegans, Giinth., var. Rept., Brit. Ind., 1864, p. 5. 

 Peltastesjolatynotus, Gray, Suppl. Cat. Shd. Rept., 1870, p. 8; id., Proc. Zool. Soc, Lond., 1870, 



p. 655, plate xxxiii; id., App. Cat. Shd. Rept., p. 5, 1872. 



This species is closely allied to the land tortoise of Southern India and Ceylon, 

 T. actinodes, and which it resembles in having no nuchal plate. It is distinguished 

 from T. elongata by the absence of the nuchal, by its less elongated and more 

 rounded form and relatively smaller feet, especially the front feet, which are the 

 same as in T. actinodes. 



The vertebral plates are the same as in T, actinodes, but the areola of the plates,, 

 as a rule, are not so high as in that species, especially as in those found in Sindh. 

 It is, however, strongly resembled in this respect by Ceylon examples. 



The Burmese land tortoise, which Blyth described under the name of T. platy- 

 nota, was based on three carapaces, which he found in use in the Rangoon bazaar 

 for baling out oil from earthen vessels. He remarks that the shells in question 

 were conspicuously distinguished by being quite flat on the back, and that the 

 carapace was much broader, but not so high as in T. stellata and T. geometrica, 

 and he considered that the species was more obviously distinct from the two latter 

 than these are from each other. He mentions that he had not seen the plastron, 

 but yet Dr. Gray remarked that Blyth did not describe the plain underside which 

 he had found in all the specimens he had examined. 



The specimens referred to this supposed species were all characterized, as in 

 T. actinodes, by the absence of a nuchal, and from our knowledge of the form 



