TESTUDO TABULATA. 
sulcata, medio flava, fusco marginata: vertebralia planiora, quorum primum pen- 
tagonum, latum, gibbosum ; secundum et tertium transverse hexagona; quartum 
hexagonum, postice angustius et productum ; quintum reliquis latius, gibbosum, ad 
marginem posteriorem rotundatum : costalia plana, areolis centralibus; primum 
trapezium; secundum et tertium pentagona, angulo superiori obtuso; quartum 
subquadratum : marginalia fere integra; primum horizontale ; secundum et tertium 
oblique prominentia; quatuor sequentia quadrata, subperpendicularia; reliqua sub- 
resupinata. Scutum nuchale nullum : caudale altum, latum, gibbosum, apice incurvo. 
Sternum latum, antice et postice angustius. Scuta jugalia parva, prominentia, 
subbidentata; humeralia subrectangula; pectoralia trigona, angustissima; abdominalia 
quadrata, rectangula, maxima; femoralia crassa, rectangula; analia angulata, pro¬ 
minentia, emarginationem triangularem formantia. 
Testee ossea; mensura. 
ped. in. lin. 
Longitudo dorsi.1 4 0 
Latitudo ejusdem .010 0 
Altitudo. 0 6 5 
Sterni longitudo. 1 0 0 
The great similarity which exists between the only two known species of 
land Tortoise inhabiting the continent of America, namely, the present species 
and T. carbonaria , and the remarkable differences which characterize the 
former in the young, the adult, and the aged state, have occasioned the greatest 
possible confusion in the synonymy. Even up to the present time, many of 
the errors of former naturalists remain uncorrected; and it has not been with¬ 
out much care and hesitation that I have at length determined upon the list 
of synonyms prefixed to this description. I have, however, been most careful 
to investigate all the authorities within my reach, and have given none upon 
which any doubt remained in my own mind. It is only by the collation of 
■ 
many specimens of different ages that we can possibly be satisfied of the iden¬ 
tity of Testudo denticidata of Schoepff, which is the animal just excluded from 
the egg,—of T scidpta of Spix, which is its young state, not yet half grown,— 
