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The reptiles, which are very abundant in this division, consist partly of saurians, referred by Owen and Mantell to eight genera, among which, besides those already enumerated, we find the Megalosaurus and Plesiosaurus. The Pterodactyl also, a flying reptile, is met with in the same strata, and many remains of Chelonians of the genera Trionyx and Emys, now confined to tropical regions.
"As Cudjo spoke, one of the turtles `bobbed' up nearly under where we sat; and, from the elongated shape of its head, resembling a snout, and the flexible shell that bent up and down along its edges, as he swam, I saw it was a species of trionyx, or soft-shelled turtle, in fact, it was that known as trionyx ferox, the most prized of all the turtle race for the table of the epicure.
A considerable number are taken by strong hooks, and, as the flesh is esteemed for food, are sold in the market. Although the last-named creature is sometimes called the snapping turtle, the animal to which the name appropriately applies is a very different creature. Its other name is the fierce trionyx. It belongs to the family of tortoises, popularly called soft turtles.
So blaze away at the 'gators, O ye Florida tourists! you will not kill many of them, anyway: their shells are too thick, but spare the pelicans, who are a harmless race of fisherfolk, like ourselves. There were great numbers of large turtles in the lake, Chelonura and Trionyx, from two to three feet long; gar-fish also, almost as big as the alligators.
None of them are referable to existing species. Among the last are crocodiles and tortoises of the genera Emys and Trionyx. Xiphodon gracile, or Anoplotherium gracile, Cuvier. The tribe of land quadrupeds most abundant in this formation is such as now inhabits alluvial plains and marshes, and the banks of rivers and lakes, a class most exposed to suffer by river inundations.
Melania turritissima, Forbes. a. Fragment of carapace of Trionyx. b. c. Bulimus ellipticus, Sowerby. Helix occlusa, Edwards. Paludina orbicularis. Planorbis discus, Edwards. Lymnea longiscata, Brand. Chara tuberculata, seed-vessel. d.
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