536 Zoological Socictj/ : Dr. Falconer a}id Capt. Cautley 



was a being of this sort in heaven, one of them undertook the dan- 

 gerous task of carrying her away. A bird (like the Garfida of Vishnoo 

 or the Eagle of Jupiter) became the vehicle. He seduced the female 

 by flattery and presents : she was turned out of heaven by the supreme 

 deity, but was fortunately received upon the back of a tortoise, when 

 the otter (an important agent in all the traditions of the American 

 Indians) and the fishes disturbed the mud at the bottom of the ocean, 

 and drawing it up round the tortoise formed a small island, which 

 increasing gradually became the earth. We may trace this tradition 

 to an Eastern source, from the circumstance that the female is said 

 to have had two sons, one of whom slew the other ; after which she 

 had several children, from whom sprung the human race. 



" In this fable we have no comparative data as to the size of the 

 tortoise, but in the Pythagorean cosmogony the infant world is repre- 

 sented as having been placed on the back of an elephant, which was 

 sustained on a huge tortoise. It is in the Hindoo accounts, however, 

 that we find the fable most circumstantially told, and especially in 

 what relates to the second Avatar of Vishnoo, when the ocean was 

 churned by means of the mountain Mundar placed on the back of the 

 king of the tortoises, and the serpent Asokee used for the churning- 

 rope. Vishnoo was made to assume the form of the tortoise and 

 ■ sustain the created world on his back to make it stable. So com- 

 pletely has this fable been impressed on the faith of the country, that 

 the Hindoos to this day even believe that the world rests on the back 

 of a tortoise. Sir William Jones gives the following as a translation 

 from the great lyric poet Jyadeva : ' The earth stands firm on thy 

 immensely broad back, which grows larger from the callus occasioned 

 by bearing that vast burden. O Cesava ! assuming the body of a tor- 

 toise, be victorious ! Oh ! Hurry, Lord of the Universe ! ' 



" The next occasion in Indian mythology where the tortoise figures 

 prominently is in the narratives of the feats of the bird- demigod 

 * Garuda,' the carrier of Vishnoo. After stating the circumstances of 

 his birth, and the disputes between his mother Viniita and • Kudroo,' 

 the mother of the serpent, it is mentioned that he was sent on an 

 expedition to bring ' Chundra' the moon, from M'hom the serpents 

 were to derive the water of immortality. While pursuing his journey, 

 amidst strange adventures, Garuda met his father Kushgiifa, who 

 directed him to ' appease his hunger at a certain lake, where an ele- 

 phant and tortoise loere fighting . The body of the tortoise was eighty 

 miles long — the elephant's 160. Garuda with one claw seized the 

 elephant — with the other the tortoise, and perched with them on a 

 tree 800 miles high.' He is then, after sundry adventures, stated to 

 have fled to a mountain on an uninhabited country, and finished his 

 repast on the tortoise and elephant. 



" In these three instances, taken from Pythagoras and the Hindoo 

 mythology, we have reference to a gigantic form of tortoise, com- 

 parable in size with the elephant. Hence the question arises, are 

 we to consider the idea as a mere fiction of the imagination, like the 

 Minotaur and the chimsera, the griffin, the dragon, and the cartazo- 

 non, &c., or as founded on some justifying reality ? The Greek and 



