278 INTKODUCTION TO ZOOLOGY. 



tlie ground. They are fond of water, travel great distances 

 for it to springs on the elevated grounds, and drink large 

 quantities. From this circumstance it occasionally happens 

 that the inhabitants of the lower district, when overcome with 

 thirst, will kill a Tortoise for the sake of the contained water. 

 " They believe," says Mr. Darwin, " that these animals are 

 absolutely deaf; certainly they do not bear a person walking 

 close behind them. I was always amused, when overtaking 

 one of tliese great monsters as it was quietly pacing along, to 

 see how suddenly, the instant I passed, it would draw in its 

 head and legs, and, uttering a deep biss, fall to the ground 

 with a heavy sound, as if struck dead. I frequently got on 

 their backs, and then, upon giving a few raps on the hinder 

 part of the shell, they would rise up and walk away ; but I 

 found it very difficult to keep my balance."* 



Were we to give fuU credence to the authority of Pliny, 

 we could not doubt, notwithstanding what has just been 

 mentioned, that Tortoises have sadly dwindled from their 

 former amplitude ; for he expressly informs us, " there be 

 found Tortoises in the Indian Sea, so great, that only one 

 shele of them is sufficient for the roufe of a dwelling-house. "f 

 Exaggerated as this statement may appear, if applied to 

 existing species, it is literally true respecting some which lived 

 in remoter periods — another instance of how the light of 

 Fiction "pales her ineffectual fire" before the brightness of 

 Truth. 



The fact to which we advert m.ay be briefly told. In the 

 north of India, and from the Sewalik Hills, which from a 

 lower chain of the Himalaya Mountains, great numbers of the 

 fossil remains of vertebrate animals were discovei'ed by Dr. 

 Falconer and Major Cautley. Among these were numerous 

 fragments of a gigantic fossil Tortoise, which after their arrival 

 in London were exhibited at a meeting of the Zoological 

 Society, J and are now in the British Museum. Fi'om the 

 relative size of the bones, and portions of the shell of this 

 extinct reptile, as compared with the corresponding parts of 

 reco'nt species, it was estimated that the lower shell (plastron) 

 had been nine feet four inches long, and the upper shell or 

 buckler (carapace) twelve feet three inches ; eight feet in 



* .Tournal, p. -164. The species spoken of is the Testudo Tndicns. 

 t riinys Natural History. London, 1634. Vol. ii. p. 431. 

 X Vide Froceedings, 26tii March, and 14th May, 1844. 



