EMYSTERRAPIN. 17 



terior with four toes; body of a compressed oval form, and seldom exceeds eight 

 or nine inches in length; is often served up at gentlemen's tables and looked 

 upon by many as good food; and frequents the lagoons and morasses of Jamaica." 

 Yet this is all that Gmelin had to establish the species Testudo palustris in his 

 edition of the Systema Naturae of Linnteus. The name is well enough, and 

 Leconte, in his excellent monograph on the North American tortoises, has retained 

 it. Yet I cannot agree with him in considering the Testudo palustris of Gmelin 

 and the Testudo terrapin of Schoepf as identical, and I must therefore adopt the 

 name of the latter, as he first accurately described it. 



4^" , 



Vol. II.— 3 



