It appears to possess tlie organs of smell and liearing at 

 a high degree. It strikes down the imprudent fish Ytrhich 

 arrives within reach of its terrible electric battery. — 

 Fishermen carefully avoid it^ and regard it with a sort of 

 superstition and terror. 



A highly interesting work has been produced on the 

 fossil terrestrial Tortoises of Mascarenhas^ of which seve- 

 ral fragments from Mauritius and Seychelles were sent by 

 the Hon. Ed. Newton and your Secretary to Dr. A. Gun- 

 ther the author^ and a corresponding member of the Royal 

 Society. 



Dr. A. Giinther at the beginning of his book speaks 

 of the enormous Tortoise shells brought to Europe by 

 ships returning from India, at a time Avlicn the study of 

 Natural history was yet in its infancy. 



Several places mentioned at random were stated to be 

 their habitat — for instance the Cape of Good Hope^ the 

 coast or Coromandel, China, Malacca &a. The impression 

 being that these Tortoises came from different parts of 

 India, they were called Testado Indica — It was only later 

 and on the reports of travellers of the 16th and 17th cen- 

 tury that their existence at two stations very far apnrt 

 was made known. The one was the Galapagos group, in 

 the Pacific Ocean, and the other was some of the Islands 

 in the Indian Ocean, such as J\Iauritius, Eodrigues, Al- 

 dabra and probably Eeunion. 



The work was published in the numbers of N(Aiure for 

 August 1875. 



