654 REPTILES — CISTUDINID^. 



The Brown Swift, known also as Pine tree Lizard, and Brown Scorpion, is 

 a very active little animal ; it prefers sandy and rocky soils, especially 

 regions of pine forests ; and, though harmless when disturbed, elevates 

 its scales so as to give to its body a more formidable appearance. It may 

 be seen on sunny days on fences and the sides of houses, and apparently 

 does not occur in wet places. It probably hybernates beneath old bark ; 

 does not become adult until two years of age ; and in Georgia breeds in 

 April. 



ORDER TESTUDINATA. TURTLES.* 



Chelonia, Gray, Mivaet, Huxlky, and Milne Edwards. 



Body-covering in the form of a dorsal and ventral shield ; carapax and plaBtron formed 

 by a uciion of the epidermis and skeleton ; head, neck, feet, and tail free ; jaws in the 

 form of a horny beak, edentulous ; tongue thick and fleshy ; rami of lower mandible 

 anchyloaed ; bones of the cranium immovably united ; alisphenoid unossifled ; naso- 

 ethmoid cartilage present ; premaxillse email and united ; quadrate bone large, immov- 

 able ; caudal vertebrse proocelons ; sacral vertebrae two ; thoracic walls immovable ; 

 legs four, with the pectoral and pelvic arches inside the skeleton ; lungs voluminous, 

 with exceedingly large cells ; heart with two anrioles and a ventricle, the latter with 

 an imperfect septum ; nrinary bladder large. 



Kky to the Families op Tbstudinata. 



* Limbs in the form of paddles. CHELONiD.ffi;. 



* Feet palmate ; usually fluviatile. a. 



* Feet clavate; lerrestrial; carapax very convex. . . . TB8TUDiNiD.a;, 



u.. Carapax jBomposed of hard osseous plates. 6. 



a. Carapax leathery, without osseous plates. . . . Trionychid^, 

 b. Sternal shields 13 or more. c. 



b. Sterna) shields less than 13 Cinosternid.*;. 



c. Jaws usually not strongly hooked ; plastron oval or oblong, d. 

 c. Jaws strongly hooked ; plastron cruciform. . . . CHELYDEiDiE. 

 d. Plastron with a movable transverse suture ; carapax short and high. 



CiSTUDINIDiE. 



d. Plastron usually without such suture ; carapax depressed or elongated. 



Emydid.*;, 



* For classification and reproduction, see Agassiz's Cont. Nat. Hist. U.S., and also 

 Proc. Zool. Soo. London, 1869, p. 165. 



