I50 REPTILES AND BIRDS. 



division. This species lives in stagnant water, and is altogether re- 

 markable for its singular appearance— for its depressed, wide, and 

 triangular nostrils, prolonged into a proboscis ; its wide gape, rounded 

 jaws, and the cutaneous appendages to the chin. 



POTAMIANS, OR RlVER TORTOISES. 



The River Tortoises only rarely come on land ; they swim with 

 much ease below and on the surface. The carapace is very broad 



Fig. 36. — Bearded Tortoise. 



and flat; the toes are united up to the claws by broad flexible 

 membranes. These membranes change their feet into true paddles. 

 They attain a considerable size, one kept by Pennant for three 

 months weighing twenty pounds, its buckler not reckoned, the neck 

 measuring twenty inches in length. The upper parts of their bodies 

 vary in tint from brown to grey, with irregularly marbled, dotted, 

 or ocellated spots ; the under part is a pale white, rosy, or purple 

 tint. Sinuous brown, black, or yellow lines are symmetrically dis- 

 posed on their right and left sides, but principally on the neck and 

 on the limbs. 



During the night the River Tortoises frequently rest on the 



