Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 4.djvu/331

Rh May 20, 184L

SIR JOHN WILLIAM LUBBOCK, Bart., V.P. and Treasurer, in the Chair.

Hart Davis, jun., Esq., the Rev. Joshua Frederick Denham, M.A., the Rev. John Hoppus, LL.D., Henry Gaily Knight, Esq., M.P., and Lieut. -Colonel Thomas Wood, M.P., were balloted for, and duly elected into the Societ5^

The following papers were read, viz. —

1 . " Catalogue of Geological Specimens procured from Kergue- ien's Land during the months of May, June, and July, 1840."

2. " Catalogue of Birds collected on board Her Majesty's Ship Terror, between the Cape of Good Hope and Van Diemen's Land."

3. " Description of Plants from Kerguelen's Land, collected in May, June, and July, 1840."

The above papers are by John Robertson, Esq., Surgeon of Her Majesty's Ship Terror, and were presented to the Society by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, and communicated by the President of the Royal Society.

4. " On the Fossil Remains of Turtles discovered in the Chalk Formation of the South-East of England." By Gideon Algernon Mantell, Esq., LL.D., F.R.S.

In this paper the author gives a description, accompanied with drawings, of a remarkable fossil Turtle, referable to the genus Emys, and named from its discoverer, Mr. Bensted, the Emys Benstedi, which has been lately found in a quarry of the lower chalk of Kent, at Burham, which is situated near the banks of the Medway, between Chatham and Maidstone. The specimen discovered consists of the carapace or dorsal shell, six inches in length and nearly four inches in breadth, with some of the sternal plates, vertebrae, eight ribs on each side of the dorsal ridge, a border of marginal plates, and one of the coracoid bones. It is adherent to a block of chalk by the external surface of the sternal plates. The marginal plates are joined to each other by finely indented sutures, and bear the impress of the horny scales or tortoise-shell, with which they were originally covered. The expanded ribs are united together throughout the proximal half of their length, and gradually taper to their marginal extremities, which are protected by the plates of the osseous border. Mr. Bell considers the species to which it belonged as being closely allied in form to the common European Emys, and as possessing a truly fluviatile or lacustrine character. The plates of the plastron, however, as also the coracoid bone, resemble more the corresponding bones of marine than of freshwater turtles.