GREAT TORTOISE 409 



well-chosen tracks. Near the springs it was a curious spectacle 

 to behold many of these huge creatures, one set eagerly 

 travelling onwards with outstretched 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 each animal stays three or four days in 

 the neighbourhood of the water, and then returns to the lower 

 country ; but they differed respecting the frequency of these 

 visits. The animal probably regulates them according to the 

 nature of the food on which it has lived. It is, however, 

 certain, that tortoises can subsist even on those islands where 

 there is no other water than what falls during a few rainy days 

 in the year. 



I believe it is well ascertained that the bladder of the v 

 frog acts as a reservoir for the moisture necessary to its existence : 

 such seems to be the case with the tortoise. For some time 

 after a visit to the springs, their urinary bladders are distended 

 with fluid, which is said gradually to decrease in volume, and to 

 become less pure. The inhabitants, when walking in the lower 

 district, and overcome with thirst, often take advantage of this 

 circumstance, and drink the contents of the bladder if full : in 

 one I saw killed, the fluid was quite limpid, and had only a very 

 slightly bitter taste. The inhabitants, however, always first 

 drink the water in the pericardium, which is described as being 

 best. 



The tortoises, when purposely moving towards any point, 

 travel by night and day and arrive at their journey's end mucii 

 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 360 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 the 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 



