250 THE REPTILES 



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/' 



None of these huge tortoises are known on the mainland o.f 

 America, which is the nearest continent, and it is a remarkable 

 and most suggestive discovery that their nearest allies in size 

 and structure formerly lived thousands of miles away across the 

 Pacific Ocean, in the Mascarene Islands, the island of Rodriguez, 

 and in the island of Aldabra, north-west of Madagascar. 



The tortoise which is imported into England and often sold 

 on hawkers' barrows in the streets is the Grecian Tortoise (Testudo 

 Gr&ca), and comes to us from most of the countries bordering on 

 the central and eastern ports of the Mediterranean Sea, from 

 Greece, Turkey, Asia Minor, and Dalmatia. The unfortunate 

 reptiles are shipped over in large numbers, frequently not under 

 too humane conditions, and on arrival are hawked round the 

 streets of our suburban districts as being useful for destroying slugs 

 and insects in the garden or cockroaches in the house. The kind- 

 hearted purchaser of a specimen, who gives his or her new pet the 

 run of the garden, soon realises that the tortoise is entirely vege- 

 tarian in its habits, and delights to browse upon all the more 

 succulent plants. They are particularly fond of dandelion, plantain, 

 and daisy leaves, and will methodically range the lawn in 

 search of these troublesome weeds, so that they may help to 

 keep them in check ; but they are equally fond of violas, sweet 

 peas, and other treasures of the border. They live for many years 

 in captivity if looked after and kindly treated, and become very 

 friendly. One which I kept for many years had a great regard for 

 the family cat, and every spring, on awakening from its long winter 

 sleep, which was passed in a box of hay kept in an outhouse out 

 of reach of damp and frost, would always walk up to the cat, and 



