THE LAND TORTOISES AND TERRAPINS 2415 



are obliged to travel from a long distance. Hence, broad and well-beaten paths 

 branch off in every direction from the wells down to the seacoast, and the 

 Spaniards by following them up, first discovered the watering places. When I 

 landed at Chatham island, I could not imagine what animal traveled so method- 

 ically along well-chosen tracks. Near the springs it was a curious spectacle to be- 

 hold many of these huge creatures, one set eagerly traveling onward with out- 

 stretched necks, and another set returning after having drunk their fill. When the 

 tortoise arrives at the spring, quite regardless of any spectator, he buries his head 

 in the water above his eyes, and greedily swallows great mouthfuls, at the rate of. 

 about ten in a minute. The inhabitants say that each animal stays three or four 

 days in the neighborhood of the water, and then returns to the lower country, but 

 they differ respecting the frequency of these visits. ' ' After mentioning that some 

 tortoises live on islands where the only water they obtain is that which falls as rain, 

 and also that the inhabitants of the Galapagos islands, when overcome with thirst, 

 are in the habit of killing a tortoise and drinking the water contained in its interior, 

 the writer proceeds as follows: "The tortoises, when purposely moving towards 

 any point, travel by night and day, and arrive at their journey's end much sooner 

 than would be expected. The inhabitants, from observing marked individuals, 

 consider that they travel a distance of about eight miles in two or three days. One 

 large tortoise, which I watched, walked at the rate of sixty yards in ten minutes, 

 that is three hundred and sixty yards in the hour, or four miles a day, allowing a 

 little time for it to eat on the road. During the breeding season, when the male 

 and female are together, the male utters a hoarse roar or bellowing, which, it is 

 said, can be heard at a distance of more than a hundred yards. The female never 

 uses her voice, and the male only at these times; so that when the people hear this 

 noise, they know that the two are together. They were at this time (October) 

 laying their eggs. The female, where the soil is sandy, deposits them together, 

 and covers them up with sand; but where the ground is rocky, she drops them in- 

 discriminately in any hole; Mr. Bynoe found seven placed in a fissure. The egg is 

 white and spherical; one which I measured was seven and three-eighths inches in 

 circumference, and therefore larger than a hen's egg. The young tortoises, as soon 

 as they are hatched, fall a prey in great numbers to the carrion-feeding buzzard 

 (Polyborus). The old ones seem generally to die from accidents, as from falling 

 down precipices; at least, several of the inhabitants told me that they never found 

 one dead without some evident cause. The inhabitants believe that these animals 

 are absolutely deaf, certainly they do not hear a person walking close behind them. 

 I was always amused when overtaking one of these 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 hiss fall to the ground with a heavy sound, as if 

 struck dead. I frequently got on their backs, and then giving a few raps on the 

 hinder part of their shells, they would rise and walk away; but I found it diffi- 

 cult to keep my balance. ' ' 



Like their Mascarene allies, the Galapagos tortoises are much esteemed as food; 

 and in order to see whether they were sufficiently fat to be killed, the inhabitants 

 were accustomed to make a slit beneath the tail, through which the interior of the 



