TESTUDO, THE DESERT TORTOISE 



(Gopherus agassizii) 



IT is interesting to imagine the frame of mind 

 of those early Western travelers who, wholly 

 ignorant of the existence of dry-land tortoises, 

 espied for the first time these queer turtle-like 

 creatures shuffling clumsily across their trail. 

 We can almost see them " glowing" like old 

 Tarn, himself, "amazed and curious/ 1 and 

 rubbing their eyes twice, then once again, to 

 make themselves sure that tortoises in a desert 

 wilderness are things of reality and not the 

 apparitions of a dream. To their minds tor- 

 toises must have always been reptiles closely 

 associated with water, and to find them here in 

 the arid deserts far away from even a suggestion 

 of dampness must have seemed a most extraor- 

 dinary sight if not an anomaly. When their 

 travels had carried them well within the range 

 of this remarkable chelonian, these immigrants 

 must soon have seen a sufficient number of them 

 to feel assured that the first ones they saw were 



