426 NOVITATES ZOOLOOICAE XXII. 1915- 



45-6 inches in length in a straight line, and was sent by M. Mathien from Manritins. 

 It is a brown-scnted specimen with no embossed scates, though all the vertebral 

 ones are raised above the rest. The authors also state that specimens occur with 

 large conical bosses to the scutes. As native country they give " All the islands 

 in the Mozambique Channel, such as Anjonan, Aldabra, and the Comoros." 



3. Testudo daiidinii Dum. and Bibr. 

 This name was given to a long narrow tortoise whose vertical middle height is 

 about half the length with no nail to the end of the tail.. The type specimen has 

 a carapace measuring 39-8 inches in a straight Hue, while a second specimen iu 

 the British Museum measures 34-5 inches in a straight line, and has a middle 

 height of less than half the length. Dr. Giinther has identified with this a 

 young 6 in the Liverpool Museum, but I am not quite sure that all the proportions 

 agree. I have associated with this species the wild South Aldabra tortoises and 

 the very large 3 brought to Mauritius from Egraont Island, Chagos Islands, by 

 Mr. Antelme, from whom I purchased it. If it should appear that the breadth 

 of these tortoises is much too great to allow of this, I leave it to others to give 

 a name to the South Aldabra Tortoise. But as the British Bluseum specimen is 

 a quite distorted individual and the type is also probably abnormally narrow, I 

 personally consider that the South Aldabra Tortoise is daudinii. 



4. Testudo ponderosa Giinth. 



Dr. Giinther applied this name to an adult ? tortoise without locality which 

 lived for some time in the Zoological Society's Gardens. The author laid particular 

 stress on the skull differences and the thickness of the carapace. Mr. Boulenger, 

 in his Catalogue of Cheloniam, 1889, puts it as a synonym of elephantina without 

 comment. 



I I'eel sure it is a hybrid of T. elephantina x T. gigantea. 



5. Testudo hololissa Giinth. 



This name was given by Giinther in his large work to two male carapaces 

 in the Royal College of Surgeons Museum, and he associated with them a ? then 

 living in the Zoological Gardens. The larger specimen is the type, and not, as 

 Boulenger states in his 1889 Catalogue, the ? now in the British Museum. As the 

 only apparent difference between this and T. gigantea is the divided supracandal, I 

 feel it is impossible to keep it up as a separate race, so it must be treated as a 

 synonym of T. gigantea. 



6. Testudo sumeirei Sauz. 



This name was applied by its author to the large living tortoise which was 

 in the Artillery Barracks at Port Louis, Mauritius, when the English took 

 possession in 1810 ; and which, thongh quite blind, is, I believe, still living. 

 Monsieur Sauzier declared that its history was unknown, and that it probably 

 originated on Mauritius or else had come from Reunion. There are, however, 

 records extant which show that it was one of six or seven large tortoises brought 

 to Mauritius from the Seychelles by the Chevalier Marion de Fresne in 1766. 

 They were undoubtedly indigenous to the Seychelles or neighbouring islands, and 

 not of Aldabra. A second specimen of this lot is in the Tring Museum ; it was 

 brought alive from Mauritius. There was a third and perhaps others alive in 

 Mauritius in 1900. One of the original lot was also brought alive to the Zoological 



