( 3:i:5 ) 



He happened to cousiilt an edition of Captain Basil Hall's ExtrucU from a 

 Journal (London, 1840), in wliich the author, when speaking of the Abingdon 

 tortoises, says : " I preserved one in a cask of spirits, and it may now be seen 

 in the Museum of the College at Edinburgh: if i.s of mediitm x/ze"* (the 

 italics are mine). This discovery received further confirmation wlien Dr. Traqnair. 

 on renewing his inqniries, found in the records of the old College ]\Iuseam an 

 entry of a " Large Turtle from South Sea — Captain Basil Hall." Unfortunately 

 no mark or label is attached to the specimen, by which its identification could 

 have been placed beyond question, so that — as Dr. Traqnair says at the end of 

 a letter to Dr. Baur — " we Iiave no ahxolnti' certainty as to whether our TeMudo 

 tpliippiiim is the specimen from the ' South Sea ' presented by Captain Basil 

 Hall or not." 



In this I must share Dr. Traquair's <>])inion, particularly as there is some 

 difficulty in reconciling Hall's statement of the si/.e of his s])ecimen with that of 

 the Edinburgh specimen. 



The types of Textudo aljiiKjdonii brought home by Captain ('onkson, K.X., 

 are of extreme age, and- have evidently reached the limit of size to which this 

 species grows : one weighed :^01 pounds, with a carapace 40i inches long 

 (over the curve) and a sternum 26 inches long. Hall, who also gives the measure- 

 ments of the Abingdon tortoise, and of course for that iwrpose would have 

 selected a large individual, states that a specimen weighing 100 pounds had a 

 shell 43 inches and a sternum 29 inches long. Now, the type of T. ephippinm with 

 a shell of 40 and a sternum of 24 inches is but little smaller than those giants 

 from Abingdon Island. Is it likely that Hall would have described this sj)ecimeu 

 as " one of medium size," suitable for jireservation in a cask of spirits ? Yet, 

 as far as the historical evidence goes, if there were no other grounds for 

 disagreeing with Dr. Baur's conclusions, I should have felt bound to let the 

 matter rest where he left it. 



II. But Dr. Baur thinks to clinch the matter by adding in a footnote on 

 p. 1043 that he had an opportunity of e.xamining a skeleton from Abingdon 

 Island in the U. S. National Museum, and that " a comparison of the elements 

 missing in the British Museum specimens with the corresponding ones of Testudo 

 epliippium leaves no doubt that Tesfudo ahingdonii is not different from Testudo 

 cpkippium." I cannot see the logic of Dr. Baur's argument. Even if it were 

 the fact that all those missing elements agree in both species, still there remains 

 the difficulty about those elements which are preserved in botli the Edinburgh 

 and British Museum specimens, and which do differ in a remarkalile manner, as 

 I have already described. Take, for instance, the skull, as to wliich I am in a 

 sufficiently good position to form an ojiininn. Of this jiart of the skeleton I 

 have examined and comjiared 



Three skulls of Trutxdo '(him/iloriii. 

 One of the tyjie of Te.itiido rpldpphrra. 

 Four of the tortoise from Duncan Island. 



* Dr. Baur states that in quoting Basil Hall I had omitted this note. This may give a wron" 

 impression .is to my manner of quoting. The edition which I used is Hall's cwn original tiition 

 (Kdinb.. ls2i), and that note does not appear in it. It was inserted by Hall in Inter popular editions 

 of the existence of which I was ignorant ; the edition used by Dr. Baur is not even in the libr.ary 

 of the British Museum, and I found it only in that of the Admiralty. The note in question appears 

 for the first time in Constable's MisoManij of Original and Sikctal Publications (Edinb., lS2li-7, 

 IGmo). 



