TESTUDO ANGULATA. 
amongst the Testudinidae or land tortoises, to the rule that the sternal plates 
are twelve; and Mr. Gray has considered this character as sufficiently impor¬ 
tant to constitute a distinct genus, to which he has given the appellation Cher¬ 
sina ; a name already applied by Merrem, though with a different termination, 
to the genus Testudo as it now stands. I cannot see the propriety of separating 
an individual species from a genus, to the other species of which it is in every 
important respect closely allied, and assigning to it a distinct generic rank, 
merely on the ground of so slight a distinction as the union or separation of 
a pair of scuta. This multiplication of genera, which in such extensive classes 
as birds or insects may be necessary and useful, is, in the present case, alike 
uncalled for on the score of convenience, and unauthorized by any claims of 
natural arrangement. 
Mr. Gray suggests that “ T. pusilla Linn, and Daud., and consequently 
T. miniata Lacep., appears to belong to this species, which is sometimes red¬ 
dish beneath when alive.” This is an amusing allusion, as there is no such 
name as miniata applied to a tortoise in Lacepede or in any other writer that 
I am acquainted with; but Mr. Gray probably means the “Vermilion” of 
that author. Had he read Lacepede s own description, he would have seen 
that it agrees fully and solely with T. areolata , and that the name “Vermilion” 
was given to it on account of the red colour of the horny plate over the nose. 
“ Sur le sonnnet de la ffite,” says the author, “ dont on a compare la forme a 
celle dun perroquet, seleve une protuberance dune couleur de vermilion 
melange de jaune. C est de ce dernier caractere que nous avons tire le nom 
que nous lui donnons.” 
I have received many specimens of this tortoise alive from Madagascar and 
from the Cape of Good Hope, and have kept one for more than a year, feeding 
in the summer upon lettuce and other vegetables, and hibernating in a stable 
under straw. 
