CHELONIA. 763 



runs forwards from each of its sides to form a triangular figure, the two lines not join- 

 ing each other at the anterior en^ of the shield, but these yellow lines correspond 

 to the well-defined rings of the costals and the imperfect rings of the marginals. 



The plastron is rich orange-yellow, but the axillary and the sixth and seventh 

 marginals below are occupied by a dusky central area. The front, sides, and top of 

 head, and the anterior portion of the neck above, are rich olive-black, fading on the 

 posterior portion of the neck above to olive-brown, the rest of the neck being of 

 this colour. A narrow yellow line on the upper surface of the head runs from between 

 the eyes backwards. A yellow line stretches from the upper margin of the nostrils 

 backwards, along the upper margin of the orbit ; a narrow line from behind the eye 

 over the upper margin of the ear, fades away on the side of the neck ; a narrow 

 yellow line, from below the nostril along the side of the face, extends to the angle 

 of the mouth, and slightly backwards ; the line of the opposite side begins as a 

 separate fine by itself, but occasionally imperfect at its beginning. A yellow line 

 runs along the lower margin of the under jaw ; the divergent yellow lines on the 

 throat commence posterior to the orifices of the mental glands. The eye is black. 

 The limbs above are covered with blackish scales, the inner and outer margin of each 

 limb having a pale narrow yellow line, and two yellow lines down the upper surface 

 of the limb ; claws blackish. 



The skull is very much narrower and much more pointed than in B. (M.) 

 ocellata, and this character comes out also in the lower jaw ; and in this narrow 

 character it is very different from the head of the types of B. ocellata in Paris. 

 Like B. ocellata it has all the palatal and mandibular characters of B. tliurgi. 



The structure of the soft parts is much the same as in B. ocellata. In the large 

 dilatation which marks the beginning of the large intestine, after which the intestine 

 again contracts to a small size, I found a great multitude of an Ascaroid worm. 



There are some osteological differences between the two species ; the neck of 

 B. peter si being somewhat proportionately longer than the neck of B. ocellata^ 

 the bodies of the cervical vertebrge of the former being the longer of the two. The 

 nuchal plate, in an adult female of B. ocellata, is nearly twice as broad anteriorly 

 as in B. petersi, and the outer anterior portion of the plastron is very much larger 

 in B. petersi than in B. ocellata, and the hyoplastral elements are considerably 

 longer in the mesial line than in B. ocellata, the post-inguinal area of the plastron 

 of B. petersi being considerably broader than that of B. ocellata. 



Blyth was the first to discover this species in Bengal. In 1859 he obtained 

 two living specimens in the Calcutta bazaar, and being misled doubtless by the cir- 

 cumstance that the types of B. ocellata were stated by Dumeril and Bibron to have 

 been obtained in Bengal, he re-named the Burmese species E. herdmorei. The evi- 

 dence I have adduced regarding the structure and disposition of the plates of the 

 species, and which, can be tested with the drawing of the type, and which have been 

 verified by actual inspection of the types in Paris, establishes, as I have already said, 

 that the true E. ocellata was the Burmese form, and therefore that Belanger's 

 specimens were not from Bengal, where E. ocellata is unknown. 



