Vol. II, Pt. I] VAN DESBURGH— GALAPAGOS TORTOISES 207 



''The historical evidence of their existence in Madagascar is 

 extremely scanty and vague. They had been cleared off from 

 the inhabited parts of the island at the time when the first 

 Europeans landed. If any of them had existed near the dis- 

 tricts occupied by the French settlers of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury, they would have been mentioned in some of the reports 

 on the natural productions of the country which these people 

 sent home. But their osseous remains, some in very perfect 

 condition and of comparatively recent appearance, show that 

 these animals were at one time widely spread over the island; 

 they are often found associated with bones of ^pyornithes. 

 Hippopotamus, cattle, and belong to two or three species. 

 Their extermination probably began with the arrival of man 

 in IMadagascar; and it is highly improbable, though by no 

 means impossible, that some individuals have survived and 

 still linger in the vast tracts of country which are still unex- 

 plored. ■ 



"Very different were the conditions of life in the islands 

 which are scattered over the ocean in a semi-circle round the 

 north of Madagascar. With the exception of the Comoro 

 group, none of these islands were inhabited by man or large 

 mammals. Consequently the tortoises lived there in absolute 

 security for ages, and multiplied to a degree which excited the 

 admiration of all the early European visitors. They occupied 

 in incredible numbers not only the larger islands of the Aldabra 

 group, the Seychelles, Reunion, Mauritius, Rodriguez, but also 

 the small ones with an area of a few square miles only, and with 

 their highest points raised scarcely 100 feet above the level of 

 the water, provided that the coral soil produced a sufficient 

 amount of vegetation to supply them with food and shelter 

 from the sun. Of this we have not only the testimony of trust- 

 worthy voyagers of the last two centuries, but the direct evi- 

 dence of remains which accident now and then brings to the 

 surface. A short time ago I received from my friend. Dr. 

 Bruce, a resident at Mahe, to whom many a naturalist is 

 indebted for assistance and hospitality, the well-preser\-ed egg- 

 shells of a gigantic land tortoise, imbedded in a conglomer- 

 ated mass of coral-sand. They came from a small island of the 

 Amirante group, on which Dr. Bruce formed a plantation of 

 Cocoanut-palms, and on which no tortoise had ever been known 



