TESTUDO ANGULATA. 
axillaria minuta: pectoralia ad marginem antico-externum sinuata: abdominalia 
magna, quadrata, ad marginem antico-externum rotundata: femoralia trapezoidea : 
analia rhombea, ad marginem testae superioris fere attinentia. 
Testee osseae mensura . 
unc. lin. 
Longitudo dorsi.7 2 
Latitudo ejusdem.4 5 
Longitudo sterni . 7 0 
Altitudo.2 3 
It is not easy to account for the obscurity which so long hung over this 
species, so common as it is in collections, and so frequently brought alive to 
this country. It appears that although Dumeril had affixed the present 
specific name to a specimen in the Paris Museum, it was in Schweigger’s Pro¬ 
dromus that it was first described. So little known is this valuable paper, 
that Mr. Gray published the species as new in the first Number of his Spici¬ 
legia, under the name of Testudo Bellii. 
This tortoise is more pleasing and elegant in its form and colours than most 
others. The regular arch of the shell, and the correct form and concentric 
furrowing of the plates, are not less remarkable than the pleasing contrast of 
the colours, and the perfect regularity of their distribution. The disk of each 
dorsal plate is yellow, becoming brownish or piceous at the areola, and the 
circumference a rich deep black. Each of the marginal plates is diagonally 
divided into yellow and black, the former occupying the larger portion. The 
sternum, during life, is yellow, clouded with a bright vermilion red, which 
disappears soon after death ; and there are some blackish radiations on each 
of the sternal plates. In old age, the sulci become obliterated, the markings 
obscure, and the shell somewhat expanded. 
The most remarkable peculiarity of this species however, and which distin¬ 
guishes it from all others of the terrestrial form, consists in the gular plates 
being united into one, with a slightly raised median line; so that, strictly 
speaking, there is hut a single gular plate. This is the only exception, 
