NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 245 



the lower districts are therefore obliged, when thirsty, to 

 travel from a long distance. Broad and well-beaten paths, 

 the result of these travels, radiate off in every direction 

 from the wells, even down to the sea-coast. This was 

 not lost upon the Spaniards, who followed them up, and 

 so discovered the watering-places. When Mr. Darwin 

 landed at Chatham Island, he could not imagine what 

 animal travelled so methodically along the well-chosen 

 tracks. Near the springs it was a curious spectacle, he 

 observes, to behold many of these great monsters, one 

 set eagerly travelling onwards, with outstretched necks, 

 and another set returning, after having drunk their fill. 

 He remarked that, when the tortoise arrives at the 

 spring, it buries its head in the water above the eyes, 

 quite regardless of any spectator, and greedily swallows 

 great mouthsful, at the rate of about ten in a minute. 

 According to Mr. Darwin, the inhabitants say that each 

 visitor stays three or four days in the neighbourhood of 

 the water, and then returns to the lower country; but 

 they differed in their accounts respecting the frequency 

 of those visits. Mr. Darwin thinks that the animal pro- 

 bably regulates them according to the nature of the 

 food which it has consumed ; but he observes that it is 

 certain that tortoises can subsist, even on those islands 

 where there is no other water than what falls durinsr a 

 few rainy days in the year. The rate of travelling in the 

 visits to the springs, or when going to any definite point, 

 is said by those who have come to their conclusion from 

 observations on marked individuals, to be about eight 

 miles in two or three days, and they continue to move 

 onwards both by night and by day. Mr. Darwin watched 

 one large tortoise, and found that it walked at the rate 

 of sixty yards in ten minutes ; that is, 860 in the hour, 

 or four miles a-day, allowing a little time for it to eat on 

 the road. 



The love-pranks of the male are continued with a de- 



