THE GIANT TORTOISES. 

 By RAYMOND L. DITMARS, 



ASSISTANT CURATOR. IN CHARGE OF REPTILES. 



ON July 1 6. 1 90 1, five giant tortoises, purchased in Boston 

 from J\Ir. Frank B. Webster, arrived at the Zoological 

 Park. These specimens cost the New York Zoological Society 

 $1,000, and their installation not only placed the Park in posses- 

 sion of a fine exhibit of these eccentric reptiles, but also of one 

 of the largest and oldest specimens now in captivity. 



As the survivors of an age when reptiles attained colossal pro- 

 portions, the giant tortoises alive to-day have witnessed many 

 changes in the animal life of our planet. Successive generations 

 of them have lived through the periods when an atmosphere reek- 

 ing with humidity drew forth luxuriant vegetation, upon which 

 browsed the great herbivorous lizards, and which eventually gave 

 way to the fauna of the present time. With the passing of in- 

 numerable centuries, race after race of reptilian monsters degen- 

 erated and perished. Their fossil remains, so gigantic in char- 

 acter as to stagger human imagination, are illustrations of the 

 period when reptilian life was in its prime. With the exception 

 of the giant tortoises, which, through some strange provision of 



