174 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
lower than Albemarle, has less fog and rain, and there are times. 
when the tortoises get no water for months together. We found, 
however, that they knew every good-sized cactus tree on the 
hillside and in the valley where they lived, for there were no 
leaves nor limbs lying about under the trees, as was the case 
in other places. 
We camped for a week on that mountain-top, and captured 
altogether nearly thirty live tortoises, which were later on sent 
to Europe. We were much chagrined, however, at finding no 
very small specimens, but soon came to the conclusion that the 
large rats, of recent introduction, and now common everywhere 
on the island, eat the young as soon as they are hatched. 
There are still a few tortoises on Duncan Island, and prob- 
ably will be for some years to come, unless the natives should 
elect to visit it and hunt them with dogs, in which event they 
would be quickly exterminated. They live in a space of less 
than five square miles, and I doubt if 50 still remain. 
In 1901 the natives of Chatham Island, where there is a large 
sugar and coffee plantation, sometimes visited other islands to 
procure iguanas for food, their supply of cattle having been ex- 
hausted. It may happen at any time that a few expeditions will 
stop at Duncan Island long enough to clear the tortoises of that 
spot from their native home. 
So far as known, Testuwdo abingdom, of Abingdon Island, is 
practically extinct. We secured two specimens in 1901, but last 
year, after thoroughly hunting over the ground where tortoises 
were formerly common, only a single fresh trail was discovered, 
where a lone tortoise had passed a few months before. The 
part of the island where this species lived is fairly easy to travel 
over, and therefore it was not a difficult matter for the hunters 
with dogs to make a clean sweep. While there are about 40 
square miles of surface on this island, not over 7 or 8 are suit- 
able for tortoises, and for some of the other species the pro- 
portion of suitable ground is still less. 
A very few years will probably see the extinction of two or 
three of the present living species, and while a few specimens 
of the others may linger for a much longer time, they, too, are 
bound to disappear under the attacks of their enemies. The ease 
with which these long-lived reptiles may be kept in captivity, 
and the great interest displayed by the public in watching the 
ponderous movements of a 500-pound tortoise, hundreds of 
years old, should induce each of our American zoological gardens 
to obtain several specimens before it is altogether too late. 
