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 be 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 considerable
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.