REPTILES 5 1 



During this operation they usually indulge in much grumbling and 

 groaning as if it were a terrible tax on their anatomy. During the 

 breeding season the males are said to " bellow like bulls." The u bel- 

 lowing" which we heard consisted of a rather low prolonged note 

 which could not have been heard more than a few yards away. 



The type localities of most of the Galapagoan species of Testudo 

 are shrouded in more or less uncertainty. Most of the early speci- 

 mens were collected by whalers and other navigators who have left no 

 records of the exact localities from which their specimens came, and 

 it is only by guesses based on the islands touched at by these naviga- 

 tors that the type localities have been approximately fixed. Within 

 recent years authentic specimens have been collected on Albemarle, 

 near Tagus and Iguana Coves, Abingdon and Duncan Islands which 

 comprise four species, the tortoises having become extinct on all the 

 other islands of the archipelago. The identification of these speci- 

 mens with those previously described has proved troublesome because 

 of the immaturity of some of the types and the rather variable charac- 

 ters upon which some of the species are based. Some of the species 

 may be simply varieties or subspecies but lack of series of specimens 

 forces us to retain all as species. 



From the accounts of early navigators who visited the archipelago 

 we learn that gigantic land tortoises formerly inhabited, beside the is- 

 lands enumerated above, Charles, Chatham, James, Indefatigable and 

 Hood Islands. The form on Indefatigable has only recently become 

 extinct. Some Ecuadorians we met asserted that some years ago they 

 had seen an immense one near the plantation situated in the central 

 crater. Albemarle Island is inhabited by two species whose ranges 

 are separated by a low barren isthmus. Duncan and Indefatigable are 

 supposed by Dr. Giinther to be inhabited by the same species ; all the 

 other islands are considered to have been inhabited by distinct species. 

 Charles, Chatham and James have each a species referred to them, leaving 

 Hood and perhaps Indefatigable, the only ones not represented by de- 

 scribed species. Of the larger islands and those possessing conditions 

 of vegetation suitable for the existence of Testudo Narboro, Bindloe, 

 Barrington, and Jervis appear never to have been inhabited. This 

 may in part be accounted for, on the three latter islands, by their in- 

 ferior height which would greatly lessen the supply of moisture. 

 Narboro, though high, is very rugged and its vegetation confined 

 mostly to the rim of the crater, the coast being fringed by rough, 

 barren lava fields which may account for the absence of tortoises. 



The young do not take on their specific characters until nearly 



