CHELONIA. 771 



During the cold weather months, many hundreds are brought to Calcutta and 

 purchased by a low caste of Hindus^ who keep them alive in tanks and sell them to 

 the Mugh population and to the Chamars for food, also eating them themselves. 



In the Purneah district, I have had an opportunity of observing at Kolassy, 

 a tribe of Sontals who have been settled in the district for some generations, 

 dive for this species in deep water, and perform the much more astonishing feat of 

 capturing in the same way the very fierce T. gangeticus and T. hurum. Ten of 

 these men, all but naked, collected together, and I was surprised to see each man 

 provided with a large bundle of green marsh grass, neatly tied up as a cylinder, 

 about 2 feet long by 9 inches in diameter, cut cleanly across at the ends. As they 

 went into the water each thrust his green bundle before him which I soon perceived 

 to be a float, on which each rested his chest, as he got beyond his depth. Then, one 

 after another, pushing away their floats, dived and re-appeared generally with an 

 example of Rardella tliurgi obtained in the mud at the bottom. Having caught a 

 tortoise the diver rests on his float to recover his breath, and coming slowly to 

 shore lands his captive which he carries in two hands, propelling himself slowly by 

 his feet. In this way they caught, in a very short time, about fifteen tortoises of the 

 following species, mz.^ P. tecta^ JE. granom^ and JBL. thurgi. 



Sub-Genus Tetraonyx, Lesson. 

 Batagur (Tetraonyx) baska. Gray. PL LXVI, LXVII, juv. 



Em.p latagur, Gray, Syn. Eept., p. 24, 1831 ; id. 111. Ind. Zool., vol. ii, 1834, t. 59. 



Emys hasha, Gray, 111. Ind. ZooL, vol. i, p. 32, tab. 75. 



Trionyx cuvieri, Gray, Syn. Rej)t., p. 50, 1831. 



Tetraonyx batagur, Gray, Cat. Tort. B. M., 1844, p. 29. 



i?a%w ^^5/^«, Gray, Cat. Sh.Rept.,B.M., p. 35.pl. xvi, 1855 j»ar*; id. Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist., 

 1857, voLxix, p. 343; id. Suppl. Cat. Sh. Rept. B. M.,p. 52,%. skull, 1870; Gunther, Bept.,' 

 Brit. Ind., p. 37, pi. iii, figs. B B ; Blyth, Journ. As. Soc, Bengal, vol. xxxii, 1863, p. 84. 



Tetraonyx hasJca, Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1869, p. 200, fig. ii, skull. 



Tetraonyx longicollis, Lesson, Belanger, Voy. aux Ind. Eept., p. 297, 1834. 



Tetrao7iyx lessoni, D. & B., Erpet. Gen. vol. ii, p. 338, pi. xvi, fig. 1, 1835, M. M. Dumeril. Cat. 

 Meth. Bept., p. 15, 1851 ; Blyth, As. Soc. Journ., vol. xxii, p. 645, 1853; Theobald, Linn. Soc„ 

 Joui-n., vol. X, Zool. p. 17, 1868 ; id.. Cat. Bept. Journ. As. Soc. vol. xxxvii, ex. No., p. 11, 1868. 



Tetraonyx baska, D. & B., Erpet. Genl. vol. ii, 1835, p. 341. 



^ There is a colony of these Hindu brokers on the eastern outskirts of Calcutta, on the high road to a great fish 

 mart to which many fish that find their way to the city bazaars, and even to those of its suburbs, are first brought alive, 

 in boats half filled with water, and sold to the highest bidders. These Bengalee Chelonian brokers live in wretched 

 thatched mud huts around a t^nk, the banks of which are literally paved with the shells of this species, and with the 

 granulated shields of Chitra, Trionyx and JEmyda, which are also highly esteemed as food. On visiting this 

 curious spot, I was first shewn a few huge specimens of T, gangeticus lying in the shallow water at the side of the tank, 

 moored to its bank by a cord passed through the webs of the fore and hind feet of one side, and secured to a wooden 

 peg driven into the bank. On the opposite side of the tank, a large enclosure had been staked off in deep water, and I 

 was informed that it was filled with Hardella thurgi which is always penned up in this way to prevent its escaping, 

 for it is a good walker on dry land. Close to this tank was another and much smaller pond, but so shallow that the 

 hacks of the turtles and tortoises appeared as low mounds above its green surface, coated with a thick pellicle of 

 confervae. Here, again, there was a central circular pen filled with Rardella thurgi, and, round about it, were many 

 specimens of T. gangeticus disabled and pegged as just described. 



