279 
Lacepede has thought himself authorized in considering them as 
belonging to Testudo marina vulgaris, of Ray ; or Testudo mydas, of 
Linnteus. Camper mentions his possessing the entire back of a fossil 
tortoise, four feet in length and six inches in breadth, found in St. 
Peter’s Mountain, Maestricht. He speaks also of other remains of 
the tortoise found in the same part, and particularly of a fossil, similar 
to his own, in the Museum of John Hunter. Philos. Trans. 1786. 
The great disproportion existing between the length and breadth of 
the back of the fossil described by Camper, has also been found to exist 
in another fossil from the same spot, in the possession of M. Preston, at 
Liege : it being four feet two inches in length, and only six inches in 
breadth. This peculiarity of form is considered by Faujas St. Fond, as 
proceeding from these being the remains of some unknown species of 
this genus, in which the hard and osseous covering was extended only 
along the vertebral column, whilst the remaining part of the back was 
covered with a coriaceous or horny covering, somewhat resembling 
that of T. lyra, Linn. Faujas St. Fond has presented to the Museum 
of Natural History at Paris the fossil remains of three tortoises from 
Maestricht. Two of these resemble each other in possessing, dif- 
ferent from the ordinary tortoise, two prolongations at the upper angles, 
as if of the arm, and forming an oval notch, where the head was 
placed. The third differs from those just mentioned, as well as from 
the common tortoise, in the general form of its shell ; which gives, 
at first view, the idea of a cuirass, with a double neckpiece or gorget. 
M. Faujas St. Fond obtained from the quarry of Grand Charonne 
part of the shell of a tortoise, which was connected with an alated 
bony appendix, such as was observed in the remains of the more 
gigantic tortoises which he found in St. Peter’s Mountain. Ann. du 
Mus. Tome 11 . p. 108. 
Reviewing the preceding account, it appears, that all of the six 
specimens found at Melsbroeck, appear, according to Faujas St. Fond, 
to belong to T. mydas — four specimens from Aix, all belong to one 
