2-50 NATURAL HISTORY. 



and Hood's Island by Testudo micropkyes. The first of these Tortoises has been known to have a cara- 

 pace three feet in length and forty inches in breadth over the top. Tlie limbs are large and long, and 

 the feet huge ; moreover, the erect neck allows the head to be moved here and there, to use Dr. 

 Giinther's expression, in a manner not unlike that of the Cobra di capello. The bones of the wrist and 

 the fingers are broad and short, the scaphoid and intermedium being united, and the whole is elephan- 

 tine in its proportions. Testudo niyrita had a nearly circular carapace as large as that of its fellow. 



Moseley states that some of these Tortoises were on board the Chcdlenger, and vere fed on pine- 

 apples, a number of which were hung in the paymaster's office. The animals used to prop themselves 

 up against a board put across the door to keep out dogs, and unable to surmount the obstacle, used to 

 glare and sniff longingly at the fruit. They, moreover, used to make their way along the deck to the 

 captain's own cabin, where there was a store of the same fruit. 



The Great Tortoises are very fond of water, drinking large quantities, and wallowing in the mud. 

 The larger islands alone possess springs, and these are always situated towards the central parts, and 

 at a considerable elevation. Near the springs it was a curious spectacle to behold many of these great 

 monsters ; one set eagerly travelling onwards with outstretched necks, and another set returning, after 

 having drunk their fill. When the Tortoise arrives at the spring, quite regardless of any spectator, it 

 buries its head in the water above its eyes, and greedily swallows great mouthfuls, at the rate of about 

 ten in a minute. The inhabitants say that each animal stays three or four days in the neighbourhood 

 of the water, and then returns to the lower country ; but they differed in their accounts respecting the 

 frequency of these visits. The animal probably regulates them according to the nature of the food 

 which it has consumed. 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. (Charles Darwin). 



One of these Great Tortoises* is that of Abingdon Island, in the Galapagos Archipelago, and there 

 is a fine specimen stuffed in the British Museum. It has a very long neck, a small flat-topped head 

 with a short snout, and the front of the jaws is straight up and down. It had originally the weight 

 of 201 Ibs., and, like the others, is sought for on account of the oil it contains. 



None of these huge Tortoises are known on the mainland of 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 great Pacific Ocean, in the Mascarene Islands, 

 the Island of Rodriguez, and also in the Island of Aldabra, to the north-west of Madagascar. 



The Great Tortoise from Aldabra, specimens of which have been taken to the Seychelles and 

 acclimatised, is round-headed, and has a convex skull, and the beak is, as it were, trenchant. The 

 third cervical vertebra is bi-convex. Now the Great Tortoises of the Mascarene Islands, but lately 

 extinct there, although closer geographically to those of Aldabra Island than to those of the remote 

 Galapagos Archipelago, resemble these last more than the others. They have a very thin carapace and 

 d, flat head; moreover, their plastron is short. So that although their anatomy closely resembles that 

 of the Galapagos Tortoises their configuration differs. 



There is a fine specimen, of a huge Tortoise from Aldabra Island, which once weighed 870 Ibs.. 

 in the British Museum, and it is called Testudo elephantina. Befoie its death (January 29, 1877) it 

 had a home in the Zoological Gardens. 



The Tortoises found in India are not of very large size, and number three species ; [the so-called 

 Indian Tortoise, which attains a length of four feet, does not come from the mainland, but from 

 Aldabra Island]. One of them is the Elegant, or Starred Tortoise, whose shell is of a black colour 

 with yellow areolse, with yellow streaks radiating from them, those running towards the corners 

 of the plates becoming gradually wider. t The plates are often humped on the back, and deep 

 cavities exist at those places inside. It attains the length of twelve inches, and is found in many parts 

 of the peninsula of Southern India and Lower Bengal. 



Captain T. Hutton states that in some places where these Tortoises are found in hilly tracts and in 

 the high grassy jungles adjoining them, they are not readily procured, because their colours and those of 

 the surrounding rocks are blended. They remain in concealment beneath tufts of grass during the heat 

 of the day, but the Bheels, who are expert in tracing their footsteps, generally succeed in catching 

 them. These Tortoises came out, when in confinement, a little before sunset, to feed on grass, cabbage, 



* Testudo alingdoni. t Testudo elcyans (Schopff). 



