POND- TOR TOISES. 
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brown, and the lower black; all the shields of the latter, as well as the marginal 
ones of the former, having a large yellow spot. The skin of the head, neck, body, 
and limbs is marked with yellow and blackish, in varying porportions; the head 
of the male having brownish dots on a darker ground, while in the female the dots 
are yellow. When fully grown, the shell attains a length of 74 inches, but in 
most of the specimens imported into England it is not much more than half that 
size. At the present day the pond-tortoise is found, in suitable localities, in South 
and East Central Europe, and South-Western Asia as far as Persia, and in Algeria. 
EUROPEAN POND-TORTOISE (f liat. size). 
During the Pleistocene period, when the climate of Northern Europe must at certain 
times have been much more genial, the pond-tortoise had a much more extensive 
distribution, its fossilised remains having been found in the superficial deposits of 
Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Lombardy, Norfolk, Sweden, and Switzerland. The 
American species, which inhabits the north-eastern United States and Canada, 
has the carapace rather more elongate, and the tail shorter; the former being 
black with pale yellow or brownish circular spots, and the plastron yellow with 
a large black patch on each shield. 
The European species inhabits both stagnant and running waters, and may be 
