IX TESTUDINIDAE ^y J 



Mauritivis and one in London ; tlie latter specimen soon died in 

 the Zoological Gardens. One of the two survivors, the last of 

 their race, is famous. It was kept at Port Louis, and when 

 Mauritius became a British possession in 1810, the tortoise was 

 especially mentioned and taken over. It still lives tliere in the 

 oTounds of the barracks of the garrison. Accordintr to the 

 proverbial oldest inhabitants it had in 1810 already reached 

 its present size, namely, a shell-length of about 40 inches with a 

 greatest circumference of 259 cm. = 8 feet 6 inches. Total 

 weight 160 kilo = about 358 lbs. When walking it stands 

 63"5 cm. = 25-4 inches high, with the plastron about 15 cm. 

 or 6 inches above the ground, and it can then carry with ease 

 two full-grown men on its back. This old male is now nearly 

 blind, but is otherwise of regular habits and in good health. 

 Although it has been known for nearly 150 years it had to 

 wait for its scientific name until the year 1892. 



Another famous individual is the Colombo tortoise. It is 

 supposed to liave come to Colombo from the Seychelles in 1798. 

 It died in 1.S07. To judge from photographs, this specimen, a 

 male, may possibly belong to T. snineirei, in spite of the very flat 

 shell, wdiich is 53^ inches in length. 



Leaving aside the remains of sub-fossil tortoises, e.g. the thin- 

 shelled 'T. vosviaeri of Eodriguez, and several kinds which have 

 been dug out in the Mare-aux-songes of Mauritius, one of which 

 had a markedly forked and prolonged anterior plastral lobe, 

 rather resembling that of the Pliocene Sivalik T. atlas, we now 

 turn to the tortoises of the Galapagos Islands. They existed in 

 enormous numbers towards the end of the seventeenth century, 

 when Dampier visited those islands. Hundreds were exported 

 and scattered early in the nineteenth century. When the islands 

 Vjecame a penal settlement of Ecuador, the introduction of con- 

 victs and pigs proved detrimental to them, but Darwin found 

 them still present in 1835 on most of the islands. His classical 

 account of these old giants is to be found in the Voyatje of the 

 Beagle. They lived on the succulent cactus plants, leaves of 

 trees, berries, and a kind of Usnea, a lichen pendant from the 

 trees. They collected regularly at certain pools and springs, 

 leading to which were regular well-trodden paths, formed by 

 the coming and going of the tortoises. He calculated tliat they 

 could walk a distance of about four miles in one day. During 



