174 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



lower than Albemarle, has less fog and rain, and there are times 

 when the tortoises get no water for months together. We found, 

 however, that they knew every good-sized cactus tree on the 

 hillside and in the valley where they lived, for there were no 

 leaves nor limbs lying about under the trees, as was the case 

 in other places. 



We camped for a week on that mountain-top, and captured 

 altogether nearly thirty live tortoises, which were later on sent 

 to Europe. We were much chagrined, however, at finding no 

 very small specimens, but soon came to the conclusion that the 

 large rats, of recent introduction, and now common everywhere 

 on the island, eat the young as soon as they are hatched. 



There are still a few tortoises on Duncan Island, and prob- 

 ably will be for some years to come, unless the natives should 

 elect to visit it and hunt them with dogs, in which event they 

 would be quickly exterminated. They live in a space of less 

 than five square miles, and I doubt if 50 still remain. 



In 1901 the natives of Chatham Island, where there is a large 

 sugar and coffee plantation, sometimes visited other islands to 

 procure iguanas for food, their supply of cattle having been ex- 

 hausted. It may happen at any time that a few expeditions will 

 stop at Duncan Island long enough to clear the tortoises of that 

 spot from their native home. 



So far as known, Testudo abingdoni, of Abingdon Island, is 

 practically extinct. We secured two specimens in 1901, but last 

 year, after thoroughly hunting over the ground where tortoises 

 were formerly common, only a single fresh trail was discovered, 

 where a lone tortoise had passed a few months before. The 

 part of the island where this species lived is fairly easy to travel 

 over, and therefore it was not a difficult matter for the hunters 

 with dogs to make a clean sweep. While there are about 40 

 square miles of surface on this island, not over 7 or 8 are suit- 

 able for tortoises, and for some of the other species the pro- 

 portion of suitable ground is still less. 



A very few years will probably see the extinction of two or 

 three of the present living species, and while a few specimens 

 of the others may linger for a much longer time, they, too, are 

 bound to disappear under the attacks of their enemies. The ease 

 with which these long-lived reptiles may be kept in captivity, 

 and the great interest displayed by the public in watching the 

 ponderous movements of a 500-pound tortoise, hundreds of 

 years old, should induce each of our American zoological gardens 

 to obtain several specimens before it is altogether too late. 



