LINSEAN SOCIETY OE LONDOIf. 25 



which was said to have been the first husband, has fortunately 

 been preserved, and is in the Natural History Museum. It 

 proves to be the shell of a female, and without doubt tiiat of the 

 individual originally imported into !St. Helena. If this shell had 

 not been pre.-erved, the whole of its age would have been placed 

 to the credit of one of the two survivors. The specimen is of 

 great interest, being distinguished by a nuchal shield of unusual 

 size, divided into two by a transverse suture. 



4. For the first information of another of these patriarchs we 

 are likewise indebted to M. Sauzier (1895), who ascertained its 

 existence in Egmont Island, Chagos Archipelago. Its original 

 habitatis supposed to be Aldabra, but when and by whom it was 

 carried to Egmont Island is not known *. This specimen (be- 

 lieved to be the largest living Tortoise) has been acquired by 

 the Hon. W. Rothschild, and is now living in the Zoological 

 Gardens, so that in course of time the whole of its structure can 

 be examined. 



5. Another very large Tortoise, of the Gralapagos type, is the 

 latest acquisition of Mr. Kothschild, and lives now side by side 

 with the Egmont Island Tortoise. Only the latest phase of its 

 adventurous wanderings is known. It was brought to Sydney 

 about the year 1880 by a Captain Alexander Macdonald, who 

 had received it as a present from a chief in Rotumah Island 

 (Madison IsliUid)t. When we recollect that Captain Porter J, 

 on his voyage from the Gralapagos, visited Madison Island in 

 1813, that he " distributed there from his stock several young 

 Tortoises among the chiefs, and permitted a great many to escape 

 into the bushes and among the grass," we shall look upon this 

 specimen as one which actually witnessed the depopulation of 

 its island home. 



For the future preservation of the Tortoises which still survive 

 in the Galapagos, we must, and can, trust to the difficulty of 

 access to their lava recesses. But we cannot be equally conHdent 

 as to the smaller remnant on Aldabra. Since a station was 

 established in that island, about the year 1880, for fishermen 

 and orchilla- gatherers, the animals were undoubtedly exposed to 

 the danger of complete extermination at an early date. How- 

 ever, an appeal § to ihe Mauritian Government, which was 

 supported by bir Josej^h Hooker, then President of the Royal 

 Society, had the iuimediate result that the protection of the 

 Tortoises was made one of the conditions under which the island 



* AltboKgh of very large size, this specimen does not show the signs of 

 extreme age which were manifest iu the Colombo Tortoise. Mr. Rot! s^iiild 

 was informed by its owner, tiiat it had been known to exist on Egmont Island 

 some loU years (jSov. Zool. 181)7, p. 4(J7), but M b'auzier tells us (La Xature, 

 l8'J5, p. 2~4) that the first settlement was formed from Mauritius at the com- 

 mencement of the century. 



t 1 am indebted for this information to Hon. W. Rothschild. 



+ Journal of a Cruise made to the Pacific Ocean, 182j, vol. ii. p. 109. 



§ Gigaut. Laiid-lort. p. 20. 



