642 Notices and Descriptions of various Reptiles. [No. 7, 



From Afghanistan Mr. Gray describes a T. horspieldi, which 

 he suggests may be T. iberia, Pallas, Faun. Casp., t. 5. The 

 Society's Museum possesses a land Tortoise from that country, 

 which however belongs to the genus Homopus, having but four 

 claws to each foot. It may be thus described. 



Homopus Burnesii, nobis. Carapax squarish, depressed, broad- 

 est posteriorly, where the free marginals are a little reverted and 

 distinctly serrate. Anterior border straight, the nuchal plate well 

 developed. Caudal as broad as the last vertebral, and broader than 

 the other vertebral plates. Nucleus of each lateral or discoidal 

 plate near its inner or upper border. Gular plates longer than 

 broad, the two forming a nearly equilateral triangle. Anals oblong, 

 divergent, forming a rather deeply notched border. Scales of fore- 

 limbs rather large, and those to the front mostly uniform in size. 

 Claws elongate, or not worn down by attrition. Beak three-pointed. 

 Colour yellow above, with black nuclei to the plates : those of the 

 plastron black with yellow border. The head and limbs appear to 

 have been yellowish. Length of carapax 6 in., by 5| in., measuring 

 straight. Height 2| in. Head to occiput If in. This large spe- 

 cimen was procured in Afghanistan by Sir A. Burnes. A very small 

 Homopus in spirit, also from Afghanistan, is doubtless the young, 

 though exhibiting some remarkable differences in the shape of the 

 upper plates. In this the nuchal is roundish, or as broad as long ; 



nocturnal Cock too of N. Zealand, also close upon extirpation, &c. The majo- 

 rity, if not all, of these islands appearing to be remnants of what may be compar- 

 atively termed continents, etch with its peculiar centre or centres of creation. 



In all these supposed reliques of ancient lands, with the chief exception of 

 Madagascar, mammalia are rare, and are chiefly or wholly Cheiroptera, Rodentia, 

 and Marsupialia ; the two former orders comprising the only placental mammalia 

 of Australia; and one species of each of these placental orders being the only 

 known indigenous mammals of N. Zealand, though a large Badger-like animal has 

 lately been reported in the latter country, in all probability a marsupial. Mada- 

 gascar is very remarkable for the extraordinary development of the quadrumanous 

 group of Lemurs, among the higher placental mammalia ; and has even a rodent 

 Lemur in Cheiromys, as Australia has a rodent marsupial in Phascalomys. 

 Its other placental mammals are mostly of peculiar genera, unknown even on the 

 neighbouring continent of Africa ; and no marsupial has been discovered there. 



