1874.] W. Theobald — On Indian and Burmese species of Trionyx. 81 



having moreover examined Dr. Anderson's aged individual, and with the skul 1 

 of the individual figured in this paper, before me to compare with Dr. Gray's 

 figure of the skull of Tr.jeudi. Dr. Anderson, moreover, having compared 

 the skull of his specimen with Dr. Gray's type of Tr. jeudi, equally with 

 myself, holds them to be identical, to which catena of testimony Dr. Gray 

 opposes an assertion seemingly based on no substantial ground whatever. 



In the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 1871, p. 85, Dr. Gray 

 refers Dr. Anderson's large specimen of Tr. JPhayrei to the shadowy genus 

 Landemania. But as I have shown that the sternal callosities of Tr. gan- 

 geticus, Cuv., when aged, really correspond with those of Landemania, it is 

 hardly possible to maintain the independent existence of such a mere shred 

 of a genus as the amended character of Trionyx would reduce it to ; whilst 

 a mere comparison of the species here given, with Gray's figure of Tr, 

 'perocellatuSy Catalogue of Shield Reptiles, p. xxxi, will at once show how 

 distinct Tr. I*hayrei, Th., is from Tr. perocellatus, to which Dr. Gray ig 

 inclined to refer it. 



A careful study, however, of Tr. cariniferus depicted on the next plate 

 of the Catalogue of Shield Reptiles (xxxii) has convinced me that it is the 

 same species as I subsequently named Tr. Phayrei, to which conclusion I am 

 led by the feeble development of the sternal bones and callosities, and the 

 only point which seems to throw doubt on this result is, that the peculiar 

 head-markings are not shown in Gray's figure. No markings whatever are 

 shown on the head, and as this is so rarely the case with a young Trionyx, I 

 conclude that the markings either had altogether faded from the specimen, 

 or that the artist had from their indistinctness omitted to copy them. 



Dr. Gray, in his note to this species, Catalogue of Shield Reptiles, p. Q7, 

 makes precisely the same comparison with regard to this species that both 

 myself and Dr. Anderson did in describing our specimens. Dr. Gray's 

 words are :— " The specimens of this species are larger than the stuffed exam- 

 ple of Tr.javanicus, but yet they have no appearance of any sternal callosities. 

 Bearing in mind that Tr. javanicus, Gray, of the above sentence is synony- 

 mous with Tr. gangeticus, Cuv., the above sentence curiously resembles the 

 description of what I considered the most salient feature of distinction in the 

 sternum of Tr. JPhayrei^ vide Journal of the Linnean Society, Vol. X, where 

 I use these words — " the osseous tubercular surface, however, is less developed 

 and more feebly sculptured (the age and size of the specimen considered) 

 than in any of its allies, and at a glance serves to discriminate the present 

 Species from them." I need not here attempt any answer to the arguments 

 and mistakes of Dr. Gray regarding this species in his paper in the Annals 

 and Magazine of Natural History, for 1871, p, 83, as they have been already 

 fully replied to by Dr. Anderson in the Annals for the same year, p. 324. 



