CHELONIA. 783 



groove divides into two, one groove proceeding to each process. The groove which 

 passes first slightly posterior to the hase of the process, then courses back in a 

 spiral manner on the process, tUl it reaches the anterior aspect of its tip. The other 

 grooves, passing backwards to the posterior or distal processes, are straightly 

 divergent, each terminating internally, but slightly posteriorly on the tip of its 

 process. The urinary groove of the body of the penis, as well as the grooves of 

 the glans, are very deep, and must form nearly a perfect canal when their edges 

 are in apposition. The groove is not continuous with the orifice of the bladder, 

 but below where the ureters open, the cloaca is marked by fine longitudinal rugse. 

 The peritoneal canals commencing slightly below and external to the neck of the 

 bladder appear to terminate in the bases of the proximal pair of filamentary pro- 

 cesses and in the spongy substance of which the glans is made up. There are no 

 lateral cloacal bladder's. The allantoic bladder is a moderately sized pyriform sac 

 marked by strong rugge on its fundus ; the remainder of its wall being smooth. 



In females measuring 5"*35 in length of carapace, the clitoris which is like 

 a miniature penis, is 0""20 in extreme length. The division between the lobes 

 is more deeply marked than in the penis, and the filaments are more continuous 

 with the lobes, one pair being directed forwards and the other backwards, while 

 in the penis these structures form nearly a right-angle with the longitudinal axis of 

 the glans. Prom the base of the proximal pair of processes, a fold of skin passes 

 upwards and outwards, terminating externally in a little wart-like papilla that 

 marks the position of the ending of the peritoneal canal. The urethral groove is 

 shorter in the females and only extends about half the distance that intervenes 

 between the clitoris and ureters, the intermediate surface being densely covered with 

 transverse folds. 



The females are distinguished from the males by their apparently greater size ; 

 their proportionally much shorter and narrower tails ; by the more rounded character 

 of the shell, and its greater fulness behind the inguinal region and greater depth 

 through the middle fine. In both sexes, the tail is generally so bent on itself in the 

 cloacal region, that when the animal is retracted and the vent closed, the bend of the 

 caudal vertebrae projects downwards, so as to abut against the anal fold of the ster- 

 num posterior to the penis and cloaca, with the anal fold and caudal contraction of 

 the carapace effectually closing the entrance to the cloaca. The upper surface of 

 the tail in U. granosa is marked by a smooth ungulate surface of a darker colour 

 than the rest of the skin, and at first sight resembling a scale. 



There is a minute papilla at the anterior extremity of the floor of the 

 nasal passage with a short fold passing backwards from it in the direction of the 

 nasal septum and acting as a valve. 



In specimens of this genus only an inch and a quarter in length, the plastron 

 presents no trace of the callous plates that afterwards become developed on its con- 

 stituent bones. In a specimen If inch in length, however, the epiplastral plates are 

 indicated by a puckering of the skin over the anterior end of the bones, and over 

 the hyo- and hypoplastra at the point where they have akeady united immediately 



