BOX TURTLE. 655 
Family Chelonide, extralimital, Atlantic and Pacific coasts, is easily recognized by 
its limbs being in the form of flappers; plastron somewhat cruciform ; the vertebral 
costal plates each often with a prominent scale or tuberous projection. It has four 
genera, Chelonia, two species, Agassiz’s Cont., i, p. 377, and Holbrook’s N. Am. Herp., ii, 
p 25; DeKay’s Rept. p. 2; Thalassochelys, one species, caouana, Holbrook’s Herp., ii, p. 
33; Agassiz’s Cont., 1, p. 384; Hretmochelys, two species, Agassiz’s Cont., i, p. 380, 
and Holbrook’s Herp., 11, p.39; and Sphargis, one species, coriacea, Storer’s Rep., p. 216; 
Holbrook’s Herp., ii, p. 45, and Agassiz’s Cont. i, p. 317. 
Testudinide, extralimital, has carapax short and very convex; plastron with a some- 
what movable transverse hinge; limbs clavate; claws blunt and short, and toes firmly 
united by the integument; one genus Testudo, three species, agassizit, Proc. Cal. Acad. 
Sci., 1870, p. 67; carolina, Agassiz’s Cont. i, p. 447; Holbrook’s Herp., p.25; and 
berlandieri, Agassiz’s Cont. Nat. Hist., i, p. 447. 
FAMILY CISTUDINIDA. BOX TORTOISES. 
Carapax and dorsal disk of bones consolidated completely, the shell thus formed being 
short, high, and broad; sternal bones united with the epidermis to form a plastron with 
a transverse movable suture ; sternal shields twelve, the gular, post-gular, and pectoral 
in front of the suture, the abdominal, preanal, and anal behind; plastron and carapax 
united by a ligamentous articulation; jaws somewhat hooked ; feet slightly palmate; 
claws moderate ; tail very short; head and neck long. 
o 
Genus CISLUDO. Fleming. 
Plastron rounded or trancate anteriorly and posteriorly ; lobes unequal, the forward 
one shorter: hind feet elongated ; toes unequal, the second longest; scales of the feet 
subequal, rounded posteriorly. . 
CistubDo CLAUSA Gmelin. 
Common Box Turtle or Checkered TYortoise. 
Cistudo carolina, KIRTLAND, STORER, DEKAY. 
Cistudo virginea, et triunguis, AGASSIZ. 
Cistudo virginea, ALLEN. 
General color of carapax black, variegated with yellow, sometimes the conditions 
give rise to well defined spots, bands or blotches; upper part of head and neck brown, 
often mingled with red or yellow especially upon the sides; gular and inframaxillary 
region varying from a speckling or spotting of black and white to a uniform reddish- 
yellow; plastron varying from black or spotted to a uniform reddish or yellowish; carapax 
notched in front; marginal plates twenty-four or twenty-five ; costals four on each side; 
last vertebral rounded superiorly, the first pentagonal, projecting in front, often notched 
behind as are the second and third, all the plates with concentric striae; young with 
a median dorsal keel; second and third costals nearly quadrilateral; hind toes three or 
four. Length of carapax, 6 inches; height of carapax, 3 inches; tail from anus, 5 lines. 
This species has been confounded with the Testudo carolina, a southern animal, which 
probably does not extend north of the Carolinas. They differ in the feet of the latter 
being club-shaped, with only the blunt claws projecting, while our Turtle has its feet 
