CHELONIA. 729 



I obtained this species at Bliam6, and have received specimens from Moul- 

 mein and from Khyouk-Phyoo in Arracan. It is prevalent throughout the Irawady, 

 and doubtless extends down the Malayan peninsula. It is closely allied to O. 

 nigricans. There appear to be four distinct varieties of this species ; the Burmese 

 form ; the Madras form which extends northwards as far as Ohota Nagpur and 

 across India to Goa, and to the north-west as far as the Jumna Canal, from whence it 

 has been recorded by Theobald, thus having a distribution much the same as Emyda 

 vittata, Peters ; and a variety in the southern extremity of India (Travancore) ; and 

 another in Ceylon. The shells are most variable in form, and the differences lie 

 chiefly in colour. 



The Madras variety, E. trijuga var. maderaspatana, is generally brown, with a 

 paler margin to the shell, and the females are paler than the males. The head is 

 dark brownish-olive. In the Southern India variety (Travancore) var. coronata, the 

 shell is entirely black above and below, with no pale band on the sternum between 

 the axilla and groin. The upper surface of the head from the tip of the snout 

 between the eyes to the commencement of the occipital spine, and the upper surface 

 and one-half of the sides of the first two-thirds of the neck, black. A vertical black 

 line from between the nostrils to the border of the lip. A yellow band from the 

 orbit over the tympanum, and temporal area golden-yellow, but of variable extent. 

 The Ceylon variety, Emys sebce, Gray, is wholly black, except a narrow yellowish 

 line down the vertebral ridges and along the margin of the shell, but the margins 

 of the plastron are broadly light yellow, and the inner aspects of the marginals are 

 yellowish. In the adult, the head is almost uniformly black, but in the young 

 it is brightly spotted all over with orange. 



I have never observed an Emyde of this nature in the Calcutta tanks, nor 

 indeed ia Bengal, and on examining the types of E. trijuga, D. and B., in the Paris 

 Museum, I found they corresponded to the Madras pale-brown variety. The 

 specimen said to have been procured at Calcutta is very young, and is certainly not 

 J), hamiltoni, as has been suggested by Blyth, but it has the spotted head of the 

 Emydes found in Ceylon ; however it is too young for any one satisfactorily to deter- 

 mine what it reaUy is. 



The type of E. helangeri, Lesson, I could not find in the Paris Museum, after 



having searched for it. 



Family— 5^ TA G URIBJE. 



Genus Batagub, Gray. 



Shell solid • ridded or unridged on the dorsal surface ; vertebral plates generally 

 broad posteriorly ; the fourth, in some, anteriorly pointed ; posterior margin of sheU 

 denticulated ia the young state, denticles disappearing with age. Sternum flat in 

 both sexes. Process from hyoplastron sending up a strong lamellar process to the 

 first costal plate, greatly constricting the axillary entrance to the visceral section of 

 the shell ; hypoplastron sendi33g up a similar process to the fifth and sixth costal 



V 4i 



