REPTILIA.
more than half the length of the postgulars ; the latter nearly equalling the length
of the pectorals, which equal the preanals in length, and are considerably shorter
than the abdominals. The anals are one-fourth shorter than the preanals.
In the young animal ( S) Pis. lxiv and lxy, somewhat younger than the
preceding, the general character of the shields, as described in the female, are preserved,
but the dorsal ridge is more marked, and sharply pointed at the ends of the
second, third and fourth vertebrals. The posterior portion of the shell is also more
denticulated. The plastron has the same form as in the female, but the lateral ridge
is strongly marked along each side, becoming intensified near the hinder border of
each shield, and the gulars are somewhat broader, and the inguinal breadth less.
The general colour of each of the female shells is brown above with .a faintly
darker area over the areola of each costal, and the margin of the shell is paler, and
its under surface is wholly brown. In the male, the upper surface is entirely brown
with a yellow margin and darker on the areolae, but neither in this specimen nor in
the females is there any tendency to develope the black bands, as in B. trivittata.
The under surface is yellow, but all the areolar centres of the plates are covered
more or less with a blackish pigment, which seems scaling off, and is not represented
sufficiently dark in the plate.
In alcoholic specimens of these young males and females, the colour of the head
and neck is pale brownish tinged with pinkish, without any trace of a black band
on the vertex ; the jaws are yellowish, and the axillary and inguinal regions and the
sides of the tail are pale, greyish-brown. The claws and the margins of the limbs
are yellowish.
The skulls of two adult females, which agree with one another in all their
essential features, present certain differences the one on the other. In one
specimen the basisphenoid is very much broader than in the other, in which the
posterior nares are somewhat narrower than in the former. The breadth also across
the mesial portion of the base of the skull, defined by the ridges of the pterygoids, is
narrower in the skull with the broad basisphenoid than in the other. There are
also minute differences in the forms of the bones entering into the temporal fossa.
The frontal also, in the two adult and in one adolescent skull, enters into the upper
margin of the orbit, narrowly in one, broadly in the others; whilst in the young male
it is wholly excluded from the orbit. These adult female skulls agree with the
¡skull figured by Gray as Kachuga trilvneata, the original of which was obtained
from Theobald, who at first regarded it as a female skull, although in 1876,1 he states
that the species B. trilvneata, Gray, was based on the head of a male animal. This
differs from the male skulls referred to B. trivittata, in the same details that the
skulls figs. 19 and 20* differ from one another, viz., in the greater breadth of the
female skull ( ? fig. 19) at the posterior angle of the upper jaw, although the skull
fig. 19 is a shorter skull than fig. 20. The prefrontals also are less upturned in
these females than in the males, which is also a feature of difference between
¿gs. 19 and 20. I am therefore disposed to think that Mr. Theobald’s first
1 2 Descr. Cat., p. 21.
* Suppl. Cat. SM. Kept., pp. 64, 55.
CHELONIA. 739
statement regarding the sex of these skulls was probably correct. The aural orifice
also of the female skulls is not so round as in the male skull. These are the only
differences which suggest themselves after a very careful examination of the adults.
In the young male (PL lxxvB, figs. 16 to 20) the upper surface of the skull
is mearly flat, but its other features are the same as in the females.
The skull closely resembles the skull of B . Imeata, from which, however, it is
at once separated by its deeper premaxillary notch; the feebler serration of the'
maxillary; the much more concave character of its under surface; the much
less downward arching of its palate, and especially by the antero-posteriorly broad
plate behind the single palatal ridge. Superiorly the skulls are very much alike.
As stated in the definition of the genus, the eyes of this as of other species are
strengthened, as in birds, by a ring of bones in the sclerotic.
The viscera of the large female were compared carefully with those of the
adult male of B . trivittata, and the only notable differences were, 1st, the much
shorter small intestine measuring only 46*'' 50, and the large intestine 80 inches,
although the intestinal tube, in the individual examined, was very soft and flaccid
compared with the contracted gut of the specimen of B . trivittata; and 2nd, the
much smaller ear-shaped processes of the lung, lying free in the visceral cavity,
compared with the large processes of B. trivittata. The cloacal bladders had much
the same character as in j?. trivittata.
I have received examples of this species from Pegu and from Bhamö in Upper
Burma, so that it appears to be generally distributed throughout the Irawady.
I propose here to consider two other allied species which do not belong to the
fauna of the Irawady and its affluents, but which from their close relation to this
and the foregoing species, and the little that is known regarding them, are worthy
of being here considered.
+ B a t a g u r d t t v a u c e l l i , 3 ) . & B .
JEmys dhongoha, Gray, 111. Ind. Zool., vol. ii, 1884«, Tab. 60, fig. % (not described); Blyth, Journ.
As. Soc., vol. xxiii, p. 210, 1854«.
Jfaiys duvaucetti, Dum. & Bib. Erpet. Gen., vol. ii, 1885, p. 885; Gray, Cat. Tort. B. M., 184*4,
p. 15; Dumeril, Cat. Meth. Kept., 1851, p. 14«.
Batagur dhongoha, Gray, Cat. Sh. Kept., 1855, p. 86, Tab. xviii, figs. 1 to 8, ju v .; Giinther, Proc.
Zool. Soc., 1861, p. 214i; id., Kept., Brit. Ind., 1864*, p. 4*2; Blyth, Journ. As. Soc., Bengal,
vol. xxxii, p. 84«, 1868,pars; Theobald, Cat. Bept. Journ. As. Soc., Bengal, vol. xxxvii, ex. No.,
1868, p. 12; id., Des. Cat., 1876, p. 22.
Kachuga hardwiehii, Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc., Lond., 1869, p. 202.
Clemmys dhongoha, Strauch, Chelon. Stud., 1862, p. 88; id., Verth, der Schildkr., 1865, p. 88, pars.
Dhongoha hardwiehii, Gray, Suppl. Cat. Sh. Bept. B. M., 1870, p. 57, pars; App. Cat. Sh. Bept.,
1872, p. 18, pars.
Dhongoha hardwickii, Gray, Hand-List, Sh. Bept., 1878, p. 52.
The shell is oval and more pointed posteriorly than anteriorly, attaining its
greatest expansion about the seventh marginal, with its posterior portion depressed,
with a depression sometimes over the region of the fourth vertebral, or continued