758 EEPTILIA. 



The carapace is olive-brown of various shades, sometimes very dark and at 

 others very light. Each plate of the carapace is very finely reticulated with black 

 lines, and is occupied by a large blackish-brown rounded spot surrounded by a pale 

 yellowish-brown zone, the outer margin of which is blackish-brown. The central 

 black spots on the vertebrals occur on the ridge-nodosities, and on the first four 

 shields they are linear ; on the fifth the spot has the shape of the shield. The black 

 spots become relatively smaller with age and more feebly marked. The margin of the 

 shell is yellowish, and the whole under surface yellowish; the osseous sutures shining 

 through the plates as lighter yellow lines. I have a specimen before me (a male) 

 with the sternal plates brownish, but this appears to have been produced by some 

 salt of iron. 



The general colour of the head is dark greyish-brown, browner on the upper 

 surface. The large vertical plate is olive greyish, with two indistinct dark longitudinal 

 parallel lines on it, below the eye ; sometimes a small yellowish spot before the eye, 

 the tip of the snout below the nostrils being obscurely marked with yellowish. A pale 

 greenish-yellow narrow line along the upper margin of the snout, over the eye, con- 

 tinued on to the neck, and margined with blackish. A similarly coloured line from 

 behind the eye over the tympanum, on to the neck, also margined with blackish. A 

 like, but more indistinct line on the under surface of the rami of the mandible, 

 slightly inwardly convergent and dilated posteriorly, terminating before the angle of 

 the mouth. Skin of the neck pale brownish, passing into light grey. Limbs pale 

 brownish-leaden with a tinge of olive. Tail dark brown above, with obscure yellowish 

 longitudinal lines. 



After a comparison of the specimens on which these observations rest with the 

 types of JE. ocellata, in the Paris Museum, I do not hesitate to regard them as 

 examples of O. ocellata, D. & B., although the types of this species were said by 

 Pumeril and Bibron, and by M. M. Dumeril to have been obtained by Belanger 

 in Bengal. 



Having forwarded specimens of the ocellated Batagurs of Bengal and of Burma 

 to Prof. Peters, he wrote to me saying that he considered the Burmese species to be 

 the true B. ocellata, D. & B. As I was in Paris at the time Prof. Peters made this 

 suggestion, I compared the types of B. ocellata with the accurate drawings of the 

 Burmese and Bengal species reproduced in this work, and arrived at the conclusion 

 that Prof. Peters' identification was correct. 



I have collected on a large scale in Eastern Bengal, but on no occasion have I 

 obtained a living animal corresponding to the ocellated tortoise of Burma, and only 

 on four occasions have I succeeded in obtaining living examples of the new form, 

 with which I have great pleasure in connecting Professor Peters' name. I am there- 

 fore disposed to consider that some mistake arose regarding the locality from which 

 Belanger's specimens were obtained, as they certainly correspond to the Burmese 

 species and not to that rare and beautiful form B. petersi. 



The tongue is small, and grooved longitudinally on its hinder part, and it is 

 separated from the larynx by a deep furrow, convex from behind forwards ; the 



