Iconographic Encyclopaedia of Science, Literature, and Art

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1860 Excerpt: ...the Cryptoderes, the head is conical, sometimes as as high as broad; the eyes are lateral. The neck is short, thick, cylindrical, invested by a loose non-adherent skin. When the head is retracted the neck assumes an S shape, and both are nearly, if not entirely, concealed by the anterior margin of the shell, or by the loose skin of the neck. The most striking anatomical difference between the twro sub-families is that in this the pelvis is attached to the carapace by a cartilaginous symphysis, and not at all to the plastron, this permitting a certain freedom of movement; while in the second sub-family, the pelvis is immovably attached to both carapace and plastron. The first genus to be referred to among the Cryptoderes is Cistudo, which includes the common land tortoise (C. clausa) of the United States. Here the carapace is very high and arched, while the lower shell or plastron is divided into two pieces by a hinge, which enables them to shut close against the upper shell, and thus completely to inclose the entire animal. The principal food of the land tortoise consists of vegetable matter, as fungi, of slugs, &c. Other species are found in the Old World, as C. europwa (pi. 81, fig. 41, and pi. 90, fig. 12). Sternothcerus, with some resemblance to the last genus, has the anterior half only of the lower shell movable. The single North American species, S. odoratus, or the stinkpot of the Middle States, is a small species, exclusively aquatic, and often caught on a hook. It exhales a very disagreeable musky smell. Commonly confounded with this species is Kinosternon pemisylvanicum, a turtle of about the same size, but with the lower shell in three pieces, of which the middle is fixed, and the anterior and posterior move on this by cartilaginous hinges. ...