25B 
FOSSIL TESTUDINATA. 
in marine deposits, where their admixture with 
the remains of Crocodilean animals shows that 
they were probably drifted, together with them, 
into the sea, from land, at no great distance.* 
In the close approximation of the generic 
characters of these fossil Testudinata, of various 
and ancient geological epochs, to those of the 
present day, we have a striking example of the 
unity of design which has pervaded the con- 
struction of animals, from the most distant 
periods in which these forms of organized beings 
were also called into existence. As the paddle 
of the Turtle has at all times been adapted to 
move in the waves of the sea, so have the feet of 
the Trionyx and Emys ever been constructed 
for a more quiescent life in freshwater, whilst 
those of the Tortoise have been no less uniformly 
fitted to creep and burrow upon land. 
The remains of land Tortoises have been more 
rarely observed in a fossil state. Cuvier men- 
tions but two examples, and these in very recent 
formations at Aix, and in the Isle of France. 
Scotland has recently afforded evidence of the 
existence of more than one species of these ter- 
* Thus two large extinct species of Emys occur, together with 
marine shells, in the jura limestone at Soleure. The Emys also 
and Crocodiles, are found in the marine deposits of the London 
clay at Sheppy and Harwich ; and the former is associated with 
marine exuvire at Brussels. Very perfect impressions of small 
horny scales of Testudinata, occur in the Oolite slate of Stones- 
field, near Oxford. 
