46 EMYS MUHLEXBERGII. 



Testudo jNIuhlenbcrgil, Leconte, Ann. Lye. N. Y., vol. iii. p. 119. 



Emys Muhlenbergii, Gray, Synop. Rept., p. 25. 



Emys Muhlenbergii, Harlan, Jour. Acad. Nat. Scien., vol. v. p. 25. 



Emys Muhlenbergii, Dumeril et Bibron, Hist. Nat. des Rept., torn. ii. p. 304. 



Description. The shell is oblong, arched, and slightly carinate. The first 

 vertebral plate is pentagonal, with an acute angle directed forwards; the second, 

 third, and fourth are hexagonal; the fifth is irregularly pentagonal, with its 

 inferior border joined to four marginal plates. The first lateral plate is 

 irregularly triangular, with its apex truncated and joined to the second vertebral 

 plate; its basis is rounded and joined to four marginal plates; the second and 

 third lateral plates are pentagonal. There are twenty-five marginal plates; the 

 nuchal is very narrow, almost linear; the first marginal plate is irregularly 

 quadrilateral, the remainder, very regularly quadrilateral; the fourth, fifth, sixth 

 and seventh are narrow and inclined backwards; all these plates are marked wath 

 radiating striae and concentric furrows in the young animal. The sternum is 

 oblong and deeply emarginate behind; the gular plates are convex, triangular, 

 each with the apex directed backwards, the lateral angles and the sutures 

 straight, projecting a little; the brachial plates quadrilateral, the internal border 

 short and straight, the external longer and rounded; the thoracic, femoral, and 

 abdominal plates are quadrilateral, and more extensive in the transverse than in 

 the antero-posterior direction; the sub-caudal are rhomboidal. The supplemental 

 plates are unusually small; the axillary circular, and the inguinal sub-triangular. 



The head is short and broad; the tip of the snout pointed; the nostrils are 

 small and near together; the eye is large, the pupil dark, with the iris brown, 

 and surrounded by an orange coloured circle. The jaws are strong and cutting; 

 the upper deeply notched, w ith a tooth on each side; the lower is furnished with 

 a single tooth. 



The extremities approach in their structure those of Cistuda Carolina, in being 

 but slightly compressed, and in having the nails short and slightly curved. The 



