the head of a tortoise all placed under one name, Emys dentata, said to have
come from Eatehgarh in the North-West Provinces of India. I t is evident, however,
that two distinct generic types are represented under the one generic and
specific name, and that the uppermost figure is a representation of the species first
figured in the Synopsis Reptilium, under the name of Emys dentata,, and that the
other animal of which there are two figures, and one of its head, is a Cyclemys, with
its plastron separated from the carapace by a soft pliable interval as in that genus.
Another tortoise was described1 under the name of Emys lineata, and again
the 111. Ind. Zool. was referred to, but no species is there figured under such a
name, hut in the Catalogue of Tortoises,2 the information was supplied with regard
to this reference, and Emys Imeata is found figured3 under the name of Emys
leachuga.
In the first Catalogue of Tortoises,4 one species named The Dhor, was included
under the genus Cyclemys, and the specific term E. dhor or E. dentata applied to it,
and the two figures in the Syn. Rept., to which I have already referred, were quoted
with the description, as applicable to the species, and the figures of the two
generic types in the 111. Ind. Zool., were still considered as representing one and
the same animal. A specimen from Java presented by Mr. Bell is mentioned, and
this is probably one of the specimens figured at Tab. 58, Vol. I I of the HI. Ind.
Zool. In the Syn. Rept., p. 20, it is stated that Emys dhor, afterwards corrected,
as I have said, to E. dentata, was “ only known from three young specimens, ”
one of which Dr. Gray received from Mr. Bell. I t is not stated in the last
mentioned work from whence this young specimen was obtained, but in the
Catalogue referred to above, this information is supplied, and Java is given as the
habitat of the species, whereas, on the plate in the HI. Ind. Zool., Eatehgarh in
the North-Western Provinces of India, is said to have been the. source of the specimens
there figured.
I have received from Mr. Andrew Anderson a specimen the exact equivalent
of fig. 1 of the 58 Tab., Yol. II, HI. Ind. Zool., from the very same locality,
Eatehgarh, and which agrees also in every particular with the tortoise first figured
under the name of E. dentata in the Synopsis Reptilium. I t is therefore evident
that the term E. dentata is applicable to the Eatehgarh tortoise, and to the
Cyclemys from Java which was afterwards figured along with it.
A further complication, however, arises, because the upper figure on Tab. 58
was afterwards regarded5 as the young of Balagur baska, but more recently
Hr. Gray pointed out6 that the Emys dentata of his Syn. Rept., and of the 111. Ind.
Zool., is not the young of E. baska, but is the same as was afterwards described
as E. ellioti from the Kistna river.
1 Syn. Rept, p. 23.
* Cat. Tort, B.M., 1844, p. 16.
* 111. Ind. Zool, rol. i, 1832, Tab. 74.
* J g c ,p .3 2 .
5 Cat Shd. Rept, 1866, p. 35.
6 Suppl. Cat. Shd. Rept,, 1870.
Now, with regard to E. Imeata, this species was at first “ established on the
drawings of a nearly adult animal of this genus in Hardwicke’s collection in the
British Museum1, which is of uniform pale olive colour.” The crown of the head is
brown, and the upper part of the neck is pale brown, with seven red-brown streaks,
the sides of the face and temple are bluish, and the chin with two yellow spots on
the sides near the glandular orifices. Dr. Gray states that the same species is
evidently figured by Dr. Hamilton under the name of Emys kachuga, but the
stripes on the sides of the neck are much brighter red-brown. A copy of his
drawing is published in the 111. Ind. Zool. as Batagm kachuga, Gray. In the
Cat. of Shd. Rept., 1855, p. 35, four specimens are referred to this species, and
a specimen from Nepal is figured at Plate xvii.
This specimen shows no lineation on the neck, and from its general characters
I am disposed to regard it as a female. I have received from Pumeah a mg.lp.
tortoise exactly resembling this figure of Emys kachuga in all its details*, and for
which I am indebted to Mr. G. W. Shillingford. The form of the vertebral plates is
the same as those, of the tortoise figured in the Shd. Rept., Plate xvii. Moreover,
I have received, as I have already said from Eatehgarh, about 200 miles to the northwest
of Pumean, a tortoise of the same size, and presenting all the characters of
the specimen first figured from the same locality by Gray, but considerably smaller
and very much younger than the Purneah animal.
The form of the shell and plates, and the characters of the upper surface of
the palate, and the coloration of the neck, seem to me, all to point to the Eatehgarh
Batagur, described along with a Cyclemys under the name E. dentata, as being the
young of Emys Imeata. I have also from the Godavery the shell of a young
Batagm, 6 inches long, agreeing with Gunther’s 2 figure of B. ellioti, and the
resemblances of this shell to the shell of the Eatehgarh specimen are so great that
I cannot but consider the two as identical, or that the Godavery form is only a subspecies.
Dr. Gray, however, while at last3 allowing that the term Emys dentata
was applicable to this Batagur and not to a Cyclemys, separated between Kachuga
Imeata and K. dentata, restricting the former term, E. Imeata, to the animal
depicted by General Hardwicke’s drawing and figured from Buchanan Hamilton’s
drawings as Emys kachuga, and limiting the, latter term to the upper figure on
Tab. 58, Vol. II, of the 111. Ind. Zool., with which he regarded E. ellioti to be
identical, and to the specimen d which he had referred4 to B. lineata. I have,
however, carefully examined this specimen d, and I cannot see that it differs from
B. lineata.
In connection with B. lineata, I may mention that under Kachuga fusca two
specimens were referred by Dr. Gray to this latter species, one from Burma, collected
by Theobald, and the other from Nepal, collected by Hodgson. The latter
1 Gray, Suppl. Cat. Shd. Rept., 1870, p. 56.
* Rept., Brit. Ind., PI. I l l , figs. A, Al.
* Suppl. to the Cat. of Shd. Rept., 1870, p. 56.
* Cat. of Shd. Rept., 1855, p. 36.