Size. 
2  SPINOUS TORTOISE. ‘@iaG ie 
He defcribes them as having feven fpiny or fer. 
rated ridges running from the head to the tail, di-. 
viding the upper part of the back into equal parts. 
The fore legs, as appear by his figure, are remark- 
ably long and narrow, flat, fmooth, and fiefhy, being 
deftitute of fcales. The color of their upper fide 
bluifh, their under fide, as well as that of the neck, 
ruddy, fpeckled with black. 
We fufpect an error in the number of the hind 
legs, the figure being reprefented with four, an ex- 
cefs we never have met with in any of this genus. 
The head is painted extremely {mall, in propor. 
tion to the fize of the animal, whofe length was fix 
feet nine inches, and breadth from the tip of one 
fore leg to that of the other ten feet four inches. 
The covering of this fpecies is compared to that 
of the Teftudo coriacea of Rondeletius, which has an 
integument refembling a tough ftrong hide; and: 
what is very fingular, neither that of the Corni/h {pe- 
cies, nor yet that of the French naturalift, feem by 
the figures to be divided into angular compartments 
by tranfverfe futures, like the fhells of all tortoifes 
we have ever met with. But the hiftory of this kind 
remains ftill very obfcure : it is therefore to be wifh- 
ed, that particular attention be paid to the next that 
is taken on our coafts; and that obfervation be made 
whether the covering 1s cruftaceous or coriaceous, 
that we may be affured that thefe were the European 
kind, not the American; it feeming not improbable 
but they might be a couple that had efcaped out of" 
fome Weft India fhip that had foundered, or been 
aft away near the Cornish coait, 
Genus 
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