INDIAN TERTIARY & POST-TERTIARY YERTEBRATA. 
SIWALIE AND NARBADA CHELONIA. 
By R. LYDEKKER, B.A., F.G.S., etc. 
(WITH PLATES XVIII. TO XXVII.) 
INTRODUCTORY. 
Previous literature . — Hitherto our knowledge of the Chelonia of the Siwaliks has 
been extremely imperfect and crude ; no systematic work on the subj ect having ever 
appeared, although there have been numerous disconnected papers. The earliest 
record of remains of the order in these deposits is by Clift, ^ who mentions and 
figures some fragments of shells of Trionychidce from Burma. Several memoirs on 
two species by Falconer and Cautley, and Falconer alone, are given in “Falconer’s 
Palaeontological Memoirs,”^ some of which were originally published at an early 
period of the palaeontological career of Falconer, although one did not appear 
during his life. Mr. Theobald has noticed several species in the ‘ Records,’® while a 
brief summary of all the species then known to him has been given by the present 
writer in the ‘ Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,’^ and also in the ‘ Records.’® 
Remains of a few species of the fossil tortoises of the pleistocene Narbadas have 
been described and figured by Stoliczka.® 
Definition of terms . — In the present memoir the various elements composing the 
epidermal horny coat are termed ‘ plates ’; the term ‘ scutes being restricted to the 
1 ‘Trans. Geol. Soc.’ sex. 2. vol. II., pp. 374-375 (1828). 2 Vol. I., pp. 359-388. (1868). 
3 ‘ Rec. Geol. Surv. Ind.’ vol. X. pp. 43-45 (1877), vol. XII. pp. 186-187 (1879). 
4 Vol. XLIX. pt. II. pp. 16-18 (1880). 5 ‘ Rec. Geol. Surv. Ind.’ vol. XVI. pp. 67-68. (1883). 
6 Ihid. vol. II. pp. 36-9 (1870). 
7 The advantage of using the term scutes in this sense is that it agrees with the application of the same term to the 
dermal armour of the Crocodilia. The term ‘ shields ’ is sometimes employed in the sense in which the term plates is used 
here, but that is liable to lead to confusion since the whole plastron is frequently termed the ventral shield ; that term being 
also employed in the same sense in the Labyrinthodonts. 
A 
