( 379 ) 



on the trail, I hurried np ; but wlieu I arrived near the bottom of the valley, he 

 yelled from the bluff on the other side that he had lost the trail I I told him to 

 wait, and turned wearily back, as the tortoise could not be far away from where he 

 had been that morning, and we needed liini. 



I did not follow the exact trail back, and lost it once or twice. While looking 

 about I all at once saw a tortoise trying to climb over a small rock, a few inches 

 high, but making no progress. I approached, and fiiun<l him to be an old, old " moss- 

 back," literally as well as figuratively. He was grunting and groaning every time 

 he made an attempt, and fell back each time. After watching a few minutes, I 

 decided he was in the last stages of rheumatism, and would soon follow the one 

 whose skeleton I found but a few rods away and which had been dead a year or so. 

 I turned liim around to get a look at his white head, when he at once rose up to his 

 full height (4 ft. at least) and showed fight. He bit repeatedly at a stick that was 

 put in his mouth, and acted entirely different from any Duncan or Albemarle 

 tortoise I ever ran across. Turning him around, facing away from me, he at once 

 turned back and started for me again. We soon decided he was too heavy and the 

 country too rocky and bushy to get him out alive, much as I would have liked to. 

 I would have given anything for my camera as he stood up in fighting attitude 

 on " his native heath." Two species of moss were growing on his back, and 

 the jilates on the back were separated by deep furrows, showing extreme age. As 

 we could not get him to shore by dark, we killed him, and hurried ilown to the 

 Cape, where the boat picked us np. We stopped and got the first one, arriving on 

 board about dark. 



The next morning four of us went np, taking the machete to cut out a j)ath, 

 which was a necessity in the tangled brush and thorn bushes. A close search 

 in the vicinity where this one was found revealed no more recent trails, and this 

 was the best marked one we saw on the island. It was probably used by the 

 tortoise journeying down from the wet interior in the rainy season to the warmer 

 temperature and soil nearer the shore, where much less rain falls and the cold fogs 

 do not occur. The occasional rains near the shore start the tender grass and leaves, 

 which in the dry season are only found well u|) near the top. The trails uj) and 

 down the mountain side at Tagus C!ove were well marked, some being a foot deej), 

 and just the width of a tortoise. The deepest were, perhaps, washed out by the rains 

 to some extent, but they showed much use. The soil there was sandstone, while 

 on Abingdon it was more rocky. The fallen leaves of cactus form an important 

 part of their food, as on all the islands the trails led from cactus to cactus. On 

 Abingdon, when I got off the trail to look for birds' nests, I usually headed for 

 a cactus tree lower down in the direction of the trail, and would find it passing 

 under the tree. On South Albemarle, where in '97 we found tortoise common 

 inland, a few miles, they made use of the cattle trails to a great extent. It was in 

 these trails that nearly all the nests were located. 



It seems somewhat strange that no very small tortoise, or their trails, were 

 found, especially on Duncan, where neither dogs nor cats were observed. It may 

 be that the rats, which are so numerous there, destroy the young as soon as they 

 aiii)ear. On Albemarle the dogs and cats undoubtedly eat a great many young 

 tortoises. Though Drowne and I examined the ground carefully about the nests, 

 where broken egg-shells were found, we could not decide what animal had dug 

 them out. It is possible the male tortoise does it, as we found two tortoise within a 

 few feet of one another at a sjjot vvliere two or throe holes were being dug. Another 



