2/8 
that the habits of these animals do not always accord with the forms 
of their feet. Thus the curious box-like tortoise, T. Carolina, Linn. ; 
T. clausa, Bose, though possessing the feet supposed to belong to the 
river tortoise, often wanders up into the country : whilst that of 
Japan, which is organized, in this part, like the sea tortoise, has the 
habits of the river tortoise. 
The hard, bony, and sometimes, perhaps, the scaly covering of 
these animals, are the only parts which can be expected to be pre- 
served in a mineralized state. But these can so very rarely yield any 
marks distinctive of species, that any attempts to make out specific 
differences in these fossil remains must in general be fruitless. 
M. Knorr gives the representation of a fossil tortoise, from a very 
valuable specimen in the possession of Dr. Gesner, found near Glaris. 
The matrix is a black schist, in which the form of the animal appears 
to be very strongly marked Towards the superior extremity, traces 
of the head are discoverable ; and a little on one side the marks of 
one of its feet extended, and somewhat resembling that of a frog, are 
also observable. 
The back part of a fossil tortoise has been found in the Isle of 
Malta, Bocconi Mus. di Jisic . et d’experienza, p. 181. Gesner also 
mentions the back part of a tortoise having been found in a quarry 
near Berlin, Be petrifactis, p. 86 ; and in the Museum of Dresden 
was a portion of a fossil shell of a tortoise, seventeen inches in length, 
and about five inches wide. Some fossil remains found in Aix, in 
Provence, and which had for some time served to perplex the oryc- 
tologists, who had been doubtful whether they should consider them 
as remains of human skulls, or of nautili, were determined by M. 
Delatour-d’Aigue, M. Adanson, and M. Lamanon, to be the fossil 
remains of the tortoise, Journal de Phys. T. xvi. p. 468. Fossil 
remains of these animals have also been found in the neighbourhood 
of Melsbroeck, near to Brussels, Oryct. de Bruxelles , par Francois 
Xavier -Bur tin. From an examination of these last-mentioned fossils, 
