GIANT TORTOISES AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION 307 



tortoise resembles the great extinct Sivvalik species, in which, 

 however, the gulars and their subjacent bones are prolonged 

 into horn-like processes. 



Giant tortoises were also imported into Ceylon. Dr. 

 Giinther, in his British Museum Catalogue, quotes, for instance, 

 the following paragraph from the Ceylon Observer of April 25, 

 1870, relating to one of these reptiles then living at Colombo : 

 " We learn on good authority that the tortoise exhibited by 

 Mr. Symons, of Uplands, the one which is so well known at 

 the Mutwal end of the town, lived in the Uplands com- 

 pound for between 150 and 200 years. It was sent from Java 

 as a present to one of the Dutch governors here." In a 

 later work ^ reference is made to a tortoise brought from 

 the Seychelles to Ceylon in 1797 and stated to be living at 

 Colombo. In this case, however, there is probably an error 

 in regard to locality, and the tortoise in question is apparently 

 the one still living at Matara, Ceylon, of which a notice, together 

 with a reproduction from a photograph, appeared in Country 

 Life of July 9, 1910. In this notice the reptile is stated to 

 have been at Matara so long ago as about the end of the 

 eighteenth century (a date which accords well with 1797) ; 

 since then its continuous existence has been testified to by 

 successive governors of Ceylon and other officials. In this 

 tortoise the length of the shell is 53I inches, only an inch 

 and a half less than that of the great South Aldabra tortoise 

 mentioned below. 



By the courtesy of Mr. Mylius, I am enabled to reproduce 

 (on the plate opposite) the photograph of the Matara tortoise, 

 which shows that the species possesses a nuchal shield 

 to the carapace and apparently paired gulars to the plastron. 

 It appears also to have a shorter neck and a more rounded 

 type of head than the Mascarene tortoises. All these 

 features indicate that the Matara tortoise — which is dis- 

 tinguished from Marion's tortoise by the presence of a 

 nuchal shield — came from the Aldabra group of islands and 

 it is possible that it may be identical with the North 

 Aldabra Testitdo gigantea, although on a previous occasion 

 I suggested its identity with T. daudini of South Aldabra. 



From the preceding paragraph it will be gathered that the 

 Aldabra tortoises are recognisable by their rounded heads and 

 ' Mostly Mammals, by R. Lydekker, p. 337. 



