GIANT TORTOISE 29 



ing position. A specimen at the New York Zoological Park, 

 which weighed 310 pounds, and whose shell measured on its 

 curves 4 feet 7^ inches by 4 feet 3 inches, with a height of 

 shell of 20 inches, was probably one hundred years old. By 



GALAPAGOS GIANT TORTOISE. 



some authorities the age of Giant Tortoises similar to the 

 one described has been estimated at four hundred years! 

 This wonderful creature lived all save the last two years 

 of its life on the Galapagos Islands, a group of burnt-out 

 volcanoes, and mountains of rock covered with brush, cacti 

 and lava, directly on the Equator, five hundred miles west 

 of Ecuador. Six species of Giant Tortoises inhabit that 

 archipelago, living chiefly upon cacti and coarse grass, but all 

 of them are now being exterminated at a very rapid rate, 



