BOX TURTLE. 655 



Family Chelonidw, extralimital, Atlantic and Pacific coasts, is easily recognized by 

 its limbs being in the form of flappers ; plastron somewhat cruciform ; the vertebral 

 costal plates each often with a prominent scale or tuberous projection. It has four 

 genera, Chelonia, two species, Agassiz's Cont., i, p. 377, and Holbrook's N. Am. Herp., ii, 

 p 25; DeKay's Kept , p. i; Thalaasochelys, one species, caouana, Holbrook's Herp., ii, p. 

 33 ; Agassiz's Cont., i, p. 384 ; Eretmochelys, two species, Agassiz's Cont., i, p. 380, 

 and Holbrook's Herp , ii, p. 39 ; and Sphargis, one species, coriacea, Storer's Rep., p. 216; 

 Holbrook's Herp , ii, p. 45, and Agassiz's Cont. i, p. 317. 



TeaiudinidcB, extralimital, has carapax short and very convex ; plastron with a some- 

 what movable transverse hinge ; limbs olavate ; claws blunt and short, and toes firmly 

 united by tQe integument ; one genns Teatndo, three species, agaaaizii, Proc. Cal. Acad. 

 Sol., 1870, p. 67; Carolina, Agassiz's Cont. i, p. 447; Holbrook's Herp. , p. 25 ; and 

 berlandieri, Agassiz's Cont. Nat. Hist., 1, p. 447. 



FAMILY CISTUDINIDiE. BOX TORTOISES. 



Carapax and dorsal disk of bones consolidated completely, the shell thus formed being 

 short, high, and broad ; sternal bones united with the epidermis to form a plastron with 

 a transverse movable suture ; sternal shields twelve, the gular, post-gular, and pectoral 

 in front of the suture, the abdominal, preanal, and anal behind ; plastron and carapax 

 united by a ligamentous articulation; jaws somewhat hooked; feet slightly palmate; 

 claws moderate ; tail very short ; head and neck long. 



Genus CISTUDO. Fleming. 



Plastron rounded or trnncate anteriorly and posteriorly ; lobes unequal, the forward 

 one shorter : hind feet elongated ; toes unequal, the second longest ; scales of the feet 

 subequal, rounded posteriorly. 



CisTDDO CLA.U8A GcQelin. 



Common Box Tiirtle or Checkered Tortoise. 



Cistudo Carolina, Kirtland, Stoker, DeKay. 

 Ciatudo virginea, et triunguis, Agassiz. 

 Ciatitdo virginea, Allen. 



General color of carapax black, variegated with yellow, sometimes the conditions 

 give rise to well defined spots, bands or blotches ; upper part of head and neck brown, 

 often mingled with red or yellow especially upon the sides ; gular aud inframaxillary 

 region varying from a speckling or spotting of black and white to a uniform reddish- 

 yellow ; plastron varying from black or spotted to a uniform reddish or yellowish ; carapax 

 notched in front ; marginal plates twenty-four or twenty-five ; costals foar on each side ; 

 last vertebral rounded superiorly, the first pentagonal, projecting in front, often notched 

 behind as are the second and third, all the plates with concentric striae ; young with 

 a median dorsal keel ; second and third costals nearly quadrilateral ; hind toes three or 

 four. Length of carapax, 6 inches ; height of carapax, 3 inches ; tail from anus, 5 lines. 



This species has been confounded with the Teatudo Carolina, a southern animal, which 

 probably does not extend north of the Carolinas. They differ in the feet of the latter 

 being club-shaped, with only the blunt claws projecting, while our Turtle has its feet 



