XX. PRELIMINARY NOTE ON A NEW TOR-TOIvSE FROM vSOUTH INDIA. By J. R. Henderson, M.B., F.L.S., Superifitendent, Madras Government Museum. The tortoise which forms the subject of this note was obtained in Cochin State, on the Malabar coast, in October 191 1, while I was engaged on a collecting tour in the dense State Forests, at a distance of about twenty miles from Chalakudi, the starting point of the forest tramway service. The Kadars, a jungle tribe who brought the first specimen to me, stated that it lived in the forest, inhabiting a short underground burrow and that it did not affect the neighbourhood of water, a fact borne out by the absence of webbed digits. In addition to this specimen, a male apparently mature, which is described below, I subsequently obtained through the kindness of Mr. G. R. Grubb, M.A., M.I.C.E., Chalakudi, a second young example, but a Museum collector dispatched to the forests in March last was unable to find any others, so the species does not appear to be common. Testudo travancorica, Boulenger, is common in the same neighbourhood and I obtained a number of specimens. Both examples of the new species have been kept alive for over six months, during which time they have lived entirely on vegetable food. They have not shown any special partiality for water and when handled they do not emit an offensive odour as in the case of G. trijuga. I have followed Stejneger and Siebenrock in substituting the earUer nam.e Geoemyda for Nicoria, the latter being adopted by Boulenger in the volume on Reptilia in the Fauna of India series. As pointed out by Stejneger (Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, XV, p. 237, 1902) the type of Geoemyda (Gray, 1834) is G. spengleri, and the same species was subsequently taken by Gray as the type of his genus Nicoria (1855). Geoemyda silvatica, n. sp. Carapace moderately depressed, tricarinate, with the median keel much more prominent than the lateral ones ; the greatest height at the level of the posterior margin of the first vertebral shield. Vertebral shields broader than long, except the last in which the length and breadth are almost equal ; vertebrals, particularly the first, wider than the costals. Nuchal longer than broad. Plastron of moderate width. Abdominal shields larger than the pectorals. The longest median suture is that between the
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