1853.] Catalogue of Reptiles inhabiting the Peninsula of India. 463 



Earn. ELODnLE— or Marsh Tortoises. 

 Gen. EMYS.* 

 Emys tbijuga, Schw. 



Syn. E. Belangeri, Lesson — Goonta, Tambel, Tel. 



Carapax olive or brown, three-keeled, edges smooth. 



By no means common in the south of India, and chiefly to be 

 found in deep tanks and large wells .f 



Length of shell of one 8 inches. 



[Col. Sykes procured another Emys in the Bombay Dukhun, E. 

 tentoeia, Gray, P. Z. S. 1834, p. 54, and the supposed adult E. 

 tectum of Hardwicke's 'Illustrations.' The Society's museum 

 contains an adult procured by Sir A. Burnes in Sindh, and we have 

 also a young specimen from the river Hughly. The species is most 

 nearly affined to E. tectum, Bell, and has the same peculiar form of 

 the fifth vertebral plate ; but the fourth is quadrilateral and elongate, 

 the third has a broad transverse posterior margin, the keels of the 

 vertebral plates (especially that of the fourth, so developed in E. 

 tectum,) are much less prominent at all ages, the entire carapax is 

 broader and flatter, and the abdominal plates are brown-black with 

 pale margins, and occasionally one or two pale central spots, — instead 

 of whitish, with two or three strongly contrasting blackish marks on 

 each, as in E. tectum. Carapax of adult 7 in. long ; that of adult 

 E. tectum 6| in. 



I am nearly certain that the small specimen is from the vicinity 

 of Calcutta, and that I kept it alive for some time, but did not then 

 distinguish it from E. tectum. Three species of restricted Emys 

 are extremely common in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, viz. 

 E. tectum, E. Hamiltonii, Gray, (of which the carapax of our 

 largest specimen measures 5| in. in a straight line,) andE. Thurgii, 



* For generic characters, vide Journ. As. Soc. 1847, p. 608. I think it super- 

 fluous to repeat in this Journal the characters so lately laid down in Dr. Cantor's 

 most admirable Catalogue. 



f Hab. also Central India (vicinity of Chaibasa) ; but in Ceylon it appears to be 

 replaced by E. Seb^e, Gray. According to M. M. Dumeril and Bibron, M. Dus- 

 sumier procured a young individual in a lake near Calcutta (doubtless the salt-water 

 lake) ; but we have never heard of another instance, although we have seen 

 multitudes of Emydes from the salt-water lake and its vicinity. — Cur. As. Soc. 



3 N 



