TESTUDO GEOMETRICA. 
Testee ossece mensura . 
unc. lin. 
Longitudo dorsi. 5 6 
Latitudo ejusdem. 4 4 
Altitudo. 3 5 
Longitudo Sterni .. 5 3 
The shell of this elegant species has always been admired as one of the most 
favourite ornaments of amateur museums ; hut, until of late years, the living 
animal had scarcely been known to naturalists. Daudin indeed complains 
that no perfect description had been given of it, as travellers had neglected 
to bring home entire specimens either stuffed or in spirit; and Schoepff was 
constrained to figure a shell, of which the anterior lobe of the sternum had 
been broken away for the purpose of extracting the internal parts, which he 
says was the case with every specimen he had seen. Within the last few 
years, however, I have possessed many living individuals of various ages, and 
have received them from India, from Madagascar, and from the Cape of Good 
Hope. I have never been able to keep them alive during the whole winter 
in this climate. 
The distinctions between this species and T. actinodes are given fully in the 
account of the latter. There is no doubt that the description given by 
Lacepede as of Testudo geometrica , was taken from a specimen of T. actinodes. 
This is evident from the number of marginal plates which he mentions as 
belonging to the species, namely twenty-three, which number is invariable in 
the latter, from the absence of the nuchal plate. Daudin describes the true 
T geometrica , but gives the other as a variety. 
The error into which Lacepede has fallen, in supposing that this species is 
the Hicatee of Browne’s Natural History of Jamaica, is one only of numberless 
mistakes which have arisen from the partial knowledge formerly possessed of 
these animals, and from a want of giving due consideration to their geogra¬ 
phical distribution. I am not acquainted with a single species of land or 
fluviatile tortoise which can he considered as strictly indigenous to the two 
