646 EEPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1889. 



islands annually, count upon these animals to furnish them with a large 

 proportion of their supplies. 



The manufacture of tortoise oil must be credited with having caused 

 the destruction of large numbers of tortoises, and as late as 1875 Cap- 

 tain Cooksou found a party of seven engaged in its preparation on Al- 

 bemarle Island. In twelve months they had made 3,000 gallons, a 

 quantity that probably represented an equal number of tortoises, lor 

 though 5 or 6 gallons have been obtained from unusually large and fat 

 animals, the average yield is about 1 gallon. Dogs, too, introduced by 

 the colonists, have played their customary role in the extirpating pro- 

 cess, chiefly by destroying the young tortoises, which they watch for and 

 devour as soon as hatched, but also by killing animals of considerable 

 size. With so many enemies, no means of defense, and no power of 

 escape by flight, it is surprising that any tortoises should to-day exist, 

 and the fact that they are not yet exterminated shows how wonderfully 

 abundant they must have been when the islands were discovered. 



In 1888 the IT. S. Fish Commission steamer Albatross succeeded in 

 obtaining a limited number of tortoises, but they were comparatively 

 small, mostly mere infants of 10 or 20 pounds weight, although one 

 specimen weighing about 40 pounds was secured. This is a sad falling 

 off from former days, for in Darwin's time individuals weighing 200 

 pounds were not uncommon, while the governor of the penal colony 

 told Darwin that he had seen tortoises so large that it required six or 

 eight men to lift one from the ground, a statement not at all incredible, 

 since a tortoise from Aldabra turned the scales at 870 pounds. The 

 decline in weight is due to the fact that the tortoises are killed while 

 they are still young and before they have had time to attain any con- 

 siderable size. Turtles live to a great age (the specimen from Aldabra 

 was known to be over eighty) and like other reptiles continue to grow 

 throughout life, so that great size is an indication of corresponding age. 

 A tortoise obtained by Captain Cooksou, estimated by an old tortoise 

 hunter to be four years old, weighed only 9 ounces, so that the rate of 

 growth would seem to be more rapid in old rather than in young indi- 

 viduals. 



Probably no more large tortoises will come from the Galapagos group, 

 and though the race may linger for some time longer, it will ultimately 

 become extinct. The story of the Mascarene tortoises is soon told. 

 Van Neck, the discoverer of the Dodo, found them abundant in Mauri- 

 tius at the time of his visit in 1598, and he tells us that some were of 

 such immense size that six men could be seated in one shell. In 1618 

 Bontekoe, on a trip to Bourbon, took twenty-four tortoises beneath a 

 single tree, a statement which shows how numerous they then were. 

 Bodriguez must, however, have been the headquarters of these ani- 

 mals, for Leguat says : "There are such plenty of laud turtles in this 

 isle that sometimes you see two or three thousand of them in a drove, 

 so that you may go above a hundred paces on their backs." 



