31 



EMYS SERRATA. 



Plate V. 



Characters. Shell sub-round, gibbous, carinate, longitudinally rugous, deeply 

 serrated posteriorly; dark brown, with sub-radiating yellow line; jaws entire. 



Stnonymes. Testuda serrata, Daud., Hist. Nat. des Rep., torn. ii. p. 144, pi. xxi. 

 La Tortue a bords en scie, Bosc, Nouv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat., torn, xxxiv. p. 264. 

 Emys serrata, Merrem, Versuch. eines Syst. der Amph., p. 26. 

 Emys serrata, Schweig., Prod. Arch. Kbnigsb., vol. i. p. 301. 

 Testudo serrata, Leconte, Ann. Lye. Nat. Hist. N. Y., vol. iii. p. 105. 

 Emys scripta, Gray, Synop. Rept., p. 20. 

 Yellow-bellied Terrapin, Vulgo. 



Description. The shell is nearly round, gibbous, or very convex, emarginate, 

 and deeply serrated posteriorly, longitudinally wrinkled, of a dark brown colour, 

 almost black, with yellow hnes and marks. The vertebral plates are five in num- 

 ber; the first is tetragonal, narrowest in front, with its lateral borders arched out- 

 wards, which gives it an urceolate form; the second, third and fourth, are hex- 

 agonal, the latter very irregularly so, with its posterior border re-entering; the 

 fifth is triangular with the apex truncated, and received into the fourth, and its 

 basis rounded and cut into four sides. Each vertebral plate has a marked promi- 

 nence, elongated in the antero-posterior direction; these protuberances, when 

 united, form a strong carina along the spine; besides these prominences, each plate, 

 lateral as well as vertebral, is strongly marked by longitudinal wrinkles. Of the 

 lateral plates, the anterior is irregularly triagonal, with its basis rounded and 

 joined to five of the marginal; the second and third are irregularly pentagonal, 



