NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 247 



fresh and salted. It is not unusual to collect tliem, 

 barrel them up alive, put them on shipboard, and take 

 them out as they are wanted, when they do not appear 

 to have wasted much in consequence of their fast. From 

 the fat a fine clear oil is prepared ; and when a tortoise 

 is caught, the state of its fatness is ascertained by a very 

 summary process, which must be more satisfactory to the 

 agent than the patient. The captor makes a slit with a 

 knife in the skin near the animal's tail, so as to see inside 

 its body whether the fat under the dorsal plate is thick. 

 If it be not, the tortoise is liberated for that time, walks 

 away, and soon recovers so as to be none the worse for 

 the operation. Those who follow this somewhat tren- 

 chant course of experiment are soon made aware, that to 

 secure one of these tortoises it is not sufficient to turn 

 them like turtle ; for, as Mr. Darwin tells us, they are 

 often able to regain their upright position after having 

 been so left on their backs. 



In America people have an odd way of immortalizing 

 themselves, and leaving intimations to friends and suc- 

 ceeding visitors where they have been. When they find 

 a tortoise, they turn it wp, cut their names with a knife 

 on the investing horny plates of the plastron or ventral 

 portion of the shell, and then, setting the reptile on its 

 legs, give the walking inscription its liberty. 



But if we are to credit ancient legends, our royal tor- 

 toise and its Galapagosian brethren must hide their dimi- 

 nished heads. De Laet avers that they grow to such a 

 size in Cuba, that one will carry five men on its back, 

 and walk off with them. But some authors never like 

 to be outdone, and the writer of ThaumatograijJiia, who, 

 to do him justice, is a most industrious collector of mar- 

 vellous stories, gives us one on the authority of Leo, that 

 throws all other testudinarian tales into the shade. A 

 traveller in Africa, weary and way-sore at the end of a 

 fatiguing day, after seeking in vain for shelter, looked 



