234 PROF. H. G. SEELEJT ON PELOBATOCHELYS BIAKII ETC* 



15. Note on Pelobatochelys Blakii and other Vertebrate Fossils 

 exhibited by the Bev. J. F. Blake in illustration of his paper on 

 the Kimmeridge Clay. By Harry Govier Seeley, Esq., E.L.S., 

 F.G.S., Professor of Physical Geography in Bedford College, 

 London. (Bead January 13, 1875.) 



[Plate XIII.] 



The fragments of a Chelonian carapace exhibited demonstrate the 

 existence of a new Emydian genus, which I propose to name Teloba- 

 tochelys. Mr. Blake's fossil comprises the nuchal plate and first six 

 neural plates, together with portions of the first five costal plates, of 

 which the fourth only is complete. It is possible that the nuchal 

 and first three neural plates belonged to one individual, and that 

 the remaining three pertained to another animal. In the British 

 Museum also, from Weymouth, are other evidences of the same 

 species, which I have been able to examine. The nuchal plate 

 is lost from this second specimen ; but the first three neural plates 

 are similarly united together, and are similarly anchylosed to the 

 neural spines of the three corresponding vertebrae ; while the third 

 neural plate in both is excavated behind with a subcircular super- 

 ficial removal of the bone extending to the margin of the adjacent 

 costal plates ; the tissue exposed is cancellous, and the hole such as 

 might have been made by an incrusting parasite or disease, though 

 it is perhaps just possible that a bony spine involved in the dermal 

 covering may have been there developed. 



Another specimen consists of the fourth to the eighth neural plates, 

 with portions of the adjacent costal plates. A fourth example appears 

 to be the pygal plate ; it is impressed like the pygal plate in Emys 

 dorsalis; and a fifth is one of the posterior marginal plates which 

 shows that the distal end of the rib was received into an ovate hole. 

 Thus nearly all the elements are available for a restoration of the 

 carapace, which was about 16 inches long and about 14 inches wide, 

 rather narrower from side to side in the anterior half than in the 

 posterior half. The carapace is arched, and rises to a median ridge, 

 being bent in the middle line of the neural plates; it begins with being 

 gently convex from side to side over the nuchal plate, and becomes 

 steadily more arched on passing backward as far as the plates are 

 preserved, the median crest increasing in sharpness as in Emys line- 

 ata. When seen in profile the carapace is moaerately convex from 

 front to back; but the hinder margins of the vertebral scutes are ele- 

 vated somewhat, as in the living Emys lineata, so that the curve is 

 broken. 



The imperfect ossification of the epipleural costal element, as seen 

 in the fourth costal plate, is another character which the fossil shares 

 with the living genus Batagur. The epipleuron extends but very little 

 beyond the lateral margin of the third vertebral scute ; this is a 

 distinction from Batagur } in which the vertebral; scutes are narrow ; 



