TERRAPENE CLAUSA. 
is yellow, excepting a few small black spots. The feet and tail vary equally 
with the other parts, and I have sometimes seen them, as well as the neck, 
almost entirely of a rich bright scarlet colour. 
The head is large and broad, the upper jaw strong and hooked at the point, 
but without a denticulated margin; the eyes are large and prominent; the 
feet are more club-shaped than in any other species of the family, and con¬ 
sequently less adapted for swimming; the tail is very small, but sufficiently 
conspicuous to prove that it must have been from a mutilated specimen that 
Linnaeus gave the character of “ caudfi nuM.” 
The first variety, nebulosa , differs from the normal character in the more 
oblong form of the shell, but especially in the very indistinct and clouded 
character of the markings: the second, maculata , which is also Testudo virgulata 
of Daudin, differs in the almost globular form of the shell—which is nearly as 
broad as it is long,—and in the spots being of a light yellow, and having a 
distinct outline upon an uniform black ground. I have now twelve specimens 
of the different varieties before me; and, were the two extremes to be ex¬ 
amined without any intervening ones, it would be impossible not to consider 
these as distinct; the intermediate variations both of form and colour are, how¬ 
ever, sufficient at once to show that they all belong to one species. 
In the elevated form of the shell, and the thick clubbed feet, this species 
bears an evident relation to the family of the Testudinidoe; an approximation 
which is equally borne out by its habits ; for we learn that although it is occa¬ 
sionally found in marshy places, it never seeks the water, and that it even fre¬ 
quents the driest and hottest situations. Its food also, although partly derived, 
as in the rest of the Emydidce , from the animal kingdom,—as beetles, snails, 
small mice, or even serpents,—consists also of various kinds of vegetables. 
In the account of this genus, I have stated at length the grounds upon which 
I have considered it as closely approximating to the terrestrial forms; and I 
may here observe that the present species possesses those characters in a 
higher degree than any other of the genus. 
A few synonyms which have been erroneously given as belonging to this 
species, require to be corrected. “La courte-queue” of Lacepede has almost 
always been considered as identical with Terrapene clausa ; but this author 
