OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 209 



stock.* But it is important here to remark, that in none of these lan- 

 guages is the word turtel ever applied to any other animal than the bird. 

 As an Anglo-Saxon element, it kept its place in the English of Chaucer 

 and WicklifFe in the fourteenth century ; it has come down to us with 

 its original meaning ; and, until comparatively late times, it has borne 

 no other. 



" The word tortoise is not so readily disposed of. Whatever be its 

 derivation, it seems to have no affinity with any word in Anglo-Saxon 

 or any other Teutonic language ; nor is it found at all in the earliest 

 English writers. Indeed, neither the Anglo-Saxon nor early English 

 exhibits any distinctive name for this order of reptiles ; which is doubt- 

 less to be accounted for by the fact, that the tortoise is not indigenous 

 to Great Britain,! and in early times was not familiarly known there. 

 It is hardly so known even at the present day ; for the land-tortoise 

 is imported from the Continent, to be kept enclosed in gardens, and 

 the sea-tortoise from the West Indies, as a special luxury for the rich 

 in great cities. 



" What, then, was the earliest word applied to this animal by Eng- 

 lishmen who had occasion to see it abroad ? Sir John Mandeville, who 

 died in 1372, and is generally regarded as the earliest English prose 

 writer, may answer the question. In his book of ' Travels in the East ' 

 he says, ' And yee schulle undirstonde that I have put this bok out of 

 Latyn into Frensche, and translated it agen out of Frensche into Eng- 

 lyssche, that every man of my nation may understonde it^ (p. 5.) 

 Now, where he speaks of the island of Java, in his Latin book he uses 

 these words : 'Sunt in hoc territorio testudines terrihilis quantitatis, 

 fitque de majoribus regi ac nobilibus delicatus ac pretiosus cibus : men- 

 tior si non quasdam ibidem viderim testudinum conchas in quarum una 

 se tres homines occultarent.' In his French version it is, ' II y a aussi 

 dans ce pais des tortues d'une enorme grandeur,' &c. And in his Eng- 

 lish translation he says, ' There ben also in that contree, a hynde of 

 snayles, that ben so grete that many persones may loggen hem in 

 here schelles,' &c. 



* In these it is prefixed to some derivative from the Gothic dubo, dove, makino- 

 a Latin and Gothic compound, like turtle-dove in English. The Gothic itself, the 

 oldest Northern source of English, does not exhibit the word turtel in the few writ- 

 ten monuments of it that are extant; but, for "turtle-doves" (Luke ii. 24), it has 

 " hraiva-dubono," mourning doves. 



t See Bell's " History of British Eeptiles," p. 16. 

 VOL. IV. 27 



