738 EEPTILIA. 



more than half the length of the postgulars ; the latter nearly equalling the length 

 of the pectorals, which equal the preanals in length, and are considerably shorter 

 than the abdominals. The anals are one-fourth shorter than the preanals. 



In the young animal ( J ) Pis. Ixiv and Ixv, somewhat younger than the 

 preceding, the general character of the shields, as described in the female, are pre- 

 served, but the dorsal ridge is more marked, and sharply pointed at the ends of the 

 second, third and fourth vertebrals. The posterior portion of the shell is also more 

 denticulated. The plastron has the same form as in the female, but the lateral ridge 

 is strongly marked along each side, becoming intensified near the hinder border of 

 each shield, and the gulars are somewhat broader, and the inguinal breadth less. 



The general colour of each of the female shells is brown above with a faintly 

 darker area over the areola of each costal, and the margin of the shell is paler, and 

 its under surface is wholly brown. In the male, the upper surface is entirely brown 

 with a yellow margin and darker on the areolse, but neither in this specimen nor in 

 the females is there any tendency to develope the black bands, as in B. trwUtata. 

 The under surface is yeUow, but all the areolar centres of the plates are covered 

 more or less with a blackish pigment, which seems scahng off, and is not represented 

 sufficiently dark in the plate. 



In alcoholic specimens of these young males and females, the colour of the head 

 and neck is pale brownish tinged with pinkish, without any trace of a black band 

 on the vertex ; the jaws are yellowish, and the axillary and inguinal regions and the 

 sides of the tail are pale greyish-brown. The claws and the margins of the limbs 

 are yellowish. 



The skulls of two adult females, which agree with one another in all their 

 essential features, present certain differences the one on the other. In one 

 specimen the basisphenoid is very much broader than in the other, in which the 

 posterior nares are somewhat narrower than in the former. The breadth also across 

 the mesial portion of the base of the skull, defined by the ridges of the pterygoids, is 

 narrower in the skuU with the broad basisphenoid than in the other. There are 

 also minute differences in the forms of the bones entering into the temporal fossa. 

 The frontal also, in the two adult and in one adolescent skull, enters into the upper 

 margin of the orbit, narrowly in one, broadly in the others; whilst in the young male 

 it is wholly excluded from the orbit. These adult female skulls agree with the 

 skull figured by Gray as Kachuga trilineata, the original of which was obtained 

 from Theobald, who at first regarded it as a female skull, although in 1876,^ he states 

 that the species B, trilineata, Gray, was based on the head of a male animal. This 

 differs from the male skulls referred to B. trivittata, in the same details that the 

 skuUs figs. 19 and 20^ differ from one another, viz., in the greater breadth of the 

 female skull ( ? fig. 19) at the posterior angle of the upper jaw, although the skull 

 fig. 19 is a shorter skull than ^g. 20. The prefrontals also are less upturned in 

 these females than in the males, which is also a feature of difference between 

 figs. 19 and 20. I am therefore disposed to think that Mr. Theobald's first 



1 2 Descr. Cat, p. 21. 



2 Suppl. Cat. Shd. Kept., pp. 54, 55- 



