1 



February 10, 1!)05.] 



Soc, XLIL, pp. 268-274) Dr. O. P. Hay, 

 among other questions, endeavors to show 

 that Wagler's Aspidonectes must stand for 

 the large genus of soft-shelled turtles typified 

 by the species Testudo triunguis, and that 

 Amy da must be regarded as a synonym of the 

 former. As I shall show below, the case must 

 be reversed so that Aspidonectes becomes a 

 synonym of Amy da. 



Dr. Hay proceeds from the assumption that 

 Wagler (1830) was the first author to sub- 

 divide the genus Trionyx, and if that were 

 the case his reasoning would undoubtedly hold 

 good. Unfortunately the subdivision was un- 

 dertaken as early as 1816 by Oken. In his 

 * Lehrbuch der Zoologie,' volume II., p. 348, 

 the latter divided the genus in two, one con- 

 taining the majority of the species, which he 

 called Amy da, and one for the single species 

 T. granosus, which he expressly calls Trionyx 

 granosus, thus evidently reserving the generic 

 term Trionyx in a restricted sense for this 

 species. He thus anticipated Wagler by 

 fourteen years in limiting Trionyx to the 

 genus which afterwards has been currently 

 known as Emyda. The part of Dr. Hay's 

 argument which relates to the latter is, there- 

 fore, not affected by Oken's action. But 

 Amyda and Aspidonectes are not exactly co- 

 extensive, inasmuch as Oken does not defi- 

 nitely place T. subplarius in either of the two 

 genera, being uncertain as to its affinities and 

 referring to it both as Amyda suhplana and 

 as Trionyx suhplanus. Consequently it can 

 not with any show of reason be made the type 

 of any of these genera. 



The next man to adopt Oken's name Amyda 

 was Fitzinger, who in 1885* restricted it to 

 three species, viz., T. subplanus, T. muticus 

 and T. eupliraticus. As shown above, T. suh- 

 planus can not be Oken's type, neither can 

 T. muticus, which was described long after 

 Oken. There remains consequently for type 

 T. -euphraticus. 



It thus becomes unnecessary to discuss 

 Bonaparte's subsequent employment of Amyda 



* There is no reason for quoting liis paper in the 

 first volume of Anjuilen des Wiener Museums from 

 1836. It was eertainlv published before Bona- 

 parte's ' Tabula analytica,' as he quotes Fitzinger 

 throughout. 



229 



in 1836, but it may not be out of the way to 

 observe that his arrangement can not be made 

 to differ from Fitzinger's of the previous year, 

 inasmuch as it is a paraphrase pure and 

 simple of this author using his characters 

 verbatim and quoting all the subgeneric names 

 as ' Aspidonectes, Fitz.,' ' Platypeltis, Fitz.,' 

 ' Pelodiscus, Fitz.,' and 'Amyda, Fitz.,' the 

 only difference being that Bonaparte does not 

 mention more than one of the species Fitz- 

 inger included. 



As Dr. Hay has clearly shown, the type of 

 Wagler's Aspidonectes by elimination is A. 

 triunguis. He does not mention in his article 

 in which genus he would place T. euphraticus, 

 but I think there can be but little doubt that 

 the two species are strictly congeneric, and 

 that consequently Aspidonectes becomes a 

 synonym of Amyda. 



If T. suhplanus is generically distinct it 

 must retain the name Dogania given it by 

 Gray in 1844. Dr. Hay considers it congen- 

 eric with Aspidonectes (now Amyda), but I 

 wish to call attention to the fact that it is 

 not only unique in having all the pleuralia 

 separated by the neuralia, but also in lacking 

 the median process of the hypoplastron, as 

 shown recently by Dr. Siebenrock. Altogether 

 it possesses so many peculiar characters that 

 it seems more worthy of separation than the 

 North American species which Dr. Hay would 

 recognize as Platypeltis. 



Leoxiiard Ste.inegek. 



U. S. National Museum, 

 .January 10, 1905. 



A NEW FIELD FOR LANGUAGE STUDY. 



The latest form of instrument in which a 

 spoken language is magnetically recorded in 

 a steel piano wire, was shown to the members 

 of Section B at the recent meeting of the 

 American Association for the Advancement 

 of Science at Philadelphia. The wire is car- 

 ried on two spools driven electrically, and can 

 be reeled from either to the other. During 

 this operation the wire passes between tlie 

 poles of a small magnet, and by magneto- 

 induction the spoken words are reproduced in 

 the receiving instrument. If the motion of 

 the wire is direct you hear the words as they 



SCIENCE. 



