TESTUDO RADIATA. 
half of the humeral, form an irregular rhomb of that colour. The pectoral 
plates are black, excepting a transverse line of yellow extending from the 
areolae directly to the median line of the sternum, where it meets that of its 
fellow; it has also several yellow rays directed outwards and forwards on its 
broad portion. The abdominal plates have each a broad equilateral triangle 
of yellow, meeting its fellow at the median line, and by their union forming a 
perfect lozenge, generally interrupted only by occasional rays of black. The 
yellow marking of the two femoral plates together forms nearly a rectangular 
triangle, of which the hypothenuse constitutes the posterior boundary, joining 
the anal plates; these have each a yellow triangle marked with black rays. 
I have thought it necessary to he the more particular in the description of 
these peculiarities, in consequence of errors which had been committed by 
some earlier writers who had confounded this species with geometrica. 
I had never seen this showy tortoise living until the year 1828, when a con¬ 
siderable number were brought to this country from Madagascar; and I kept 
several of them alive during the summer. The shells had however been rather 
common in collections for some years before. Its habitat is now so well 
ascertained, and so generally known, that a formal refutation of Shaw’s opinion 
that it might be the Hicatee of Brown’s Jamaica, is wholly unnecessary. 
