28 



WRINKLED TORTOISE. 



Testudo Rugosa . T. rugosa nigra, jiavo venulosO'Variata, SCU' 



tellis mediis subpandurceformibus. 

 I'ortoise with black wrinkled shell, mottled and variegated with 



yellow; with the middle dorsal pieces subpanduriform. 



A SHELL of this remarkable species, which does 

 not appear to have been described in any work on 

 natural history, is preserved in the Leverian Mu- 

 seum. It is of a long oval form, somewhat di- 

 lated or widened at the hind part; and is of very 

 considerable depth or convexity. Its colour is 

 black, or dark brown, thickly mottled with small 

 and somewhat confluent spots and variegations of 

 pale yellow, which are rather larger on the sides 

 than on the middle of the shell. The three middle 

 divisions of the dorsal row of scutella are, in the 

 Linnasan phrase, somewhat panduriform or fiddle- 

 shaped ; while the upper piece is so formed as to 

 resemble the outline of a pitcher, and the loM^est 

 is irregularly hexagonal : the side pieces are four 

 in number, and nearly of the general or usual 

 shape : the marginal pieces are twenty-five in num- 

 ber; the upper one very small, and the four lowest 

 on each side pretty deeply emarginated or sub- 

 bifid, so as to give a somewhat serrated outhne to 

 that part of the shell. A pretty distinctly marked, 

 but by no means sharp, carina or ridge runs down 

 the dorsal row. The whole upper surface of the 

 shell is strongly wrinkled ; every scutellum being 

 marked by numerous, deeply impressed, somewhat 



