474 REPTILES. 



measuring six feet in length. It is widely but now sparsely distributed 

 in tropical and temperate seas, and is said to be herbivorous. 



Order 2. Testudinata. 



Chelonidae, marine turtles, with fin-like feet, and partially ossified 

 carapace. They occur in intertropical seas, and bury their soft-shelled 

 eggs on sandy shores. The green turtle (Chelone viridis) is much 

 esteemed as food ; the hawk's-bill turtle {Careita imbricata) furnishes 

 much of the commercial tortoise-shell. 



Testudinidae, land tortoises, with convex perfectly ossified carapace 

 and feet adapted for walking. They are found in the warmer regions 

 of both the old and the new world, but not in Australia. In diet they are 

 vegetarian. The common tortoise ( Testudo grceca), and the exterminated 

 giant tortoises of the Mascarene and Galapagos Islands are good repre- 

 sentatives. 



Chelydidse, fresh-water tortoises, more or less aquatic, with per- 

 fectly ossified carapace, and feet with sharp claws. Examples — Chelys 

 Jlmbriata, from Brazil and the Guianas, with warty growths of decep- 

 tive appearance ; Emys orbicularis common in S. Europe ; Chelydra 

 and Macroclemmys, the aquatic terrapenes of N. America. 



Trionychidae, fresh-water turtles, with depressed carapace covered 

 with soft skin, with webbed digits. Each foot has sharp claws on the 

 three inner digits. They are carnivorous in habit. Examples — Trionyx, 

 iavanicus, ^ngetiais, niloticus, from Java, the Ganges, and the Nile 

 respectively. 



Order Rhynchocephalia. 



The only living representative of this order is the New 

 Zealand " Lizard " — Hatteria or Sphenodon pundatus, the 

 Tuatara of the Maoris. Lizard-hke in appearance, it mea- 

 sures from one to two feet in length, has a compressed 

 crested tail, is dull olive-green spotted with yellow above and 

 whitish below. It is fast becoming very rare, but is still found 

 in some small islands off the New Zealand coast. It lives in 

 holes among the rocks or in small burrows, feeds on small 

 animals, and is nocturnal in habit. 



The skull, unlike that of any lizard, has an ossified 

 quadrato-jugal, and therefore a complete infra-temporal 

 arcade; the quadrate is firmly united to pterygoid, squa- 

 mosal, and quadrato-jugal ; the pterygoids meet the vomer 

 and separate the palatines ; there are teeth on the palatine 

 in a single longitudinal row, parallel with those on maxilla 

 and mandible, and the three sets seem to wear one another 



