37 8 CHELONIA 



CHAP. 



the time of propagation the males emit a hoarse bark, which can 

 be heard a hundred yards off. The round eggs measure about 

 5 cm. or 2 inches in diameter, and are laid in the month of 

 October, about one dozen making a set. 



Nearly every island had apparently its own kind. They are 

 all remarkable for their small head and the length of their neck, 

 which is decidedly longer and more slender than that of the 

 Eastern tortoises. The most peculiar looking are or were T. 

 epliippium and T. abingdoni, the shell of which is extremely 

 thin, with large lacunae in the osseous plates. The profile of the 

 shell is somewhat saddle-shaped, with the horny shields partly 

 concave and turned upwards at the sides. The general colour of 

 these and the other Galapagos tortoises is black. T. epliippium 

 still survives on Duncan Island. Of T. elephantopus s. vicina 

 Baur collected twenty-one specimens in 1893 on Albemarle Island. 

 Some of them are still comparatively young, only 1 6 inches long. 

 A large one was killed, and, being hard up for water, Baur and 

 his companions drank the five cups full of fluid contained in the 

 pericardial sac ; they found it most refreshing, and tasting some- 

 what like the white of an egg. One monster is said to have 

 measured 56 inches over the curve, with a skull 7*12 inches in 

 length. Mr. Kothschild received one of this kind alive a 

 much -travelled specimen. It came to England from Sydney, 

 whether it had been brought in 1880 from Eotuma Island, 

 north of the Fiji group. There it had probably been left with 

 others by Captain Porter, who, on his voyage from the Galapagos 

 in 1813, distributed several young tortoises from his stock 

 among the chiefs, and permitted a great many to escape into 

 the bushes and among the grass. The shell of this specimen 

 measured 49^- inches in length, 56 over the curve. 



Fam. 6. Chelonidae (Turtles'). The limbs are paddle-shaped, 

 and the shell is covered with horny shields. Only two recent 

 genera, with three species, widely distributed in the seas. 



The neck is short and incompletely retractile. The temporal 

 region of the skull is completely roofed over above and laterally 

 by the parietals, postfrontals, squamosals, quadrato-jugals and 

 jugals. All these bones are much expanded, and form the 

 additional or false roof. The parietals are especially large, and are 

 in broad contact with the squamosals. Nasals are absent. The 

 nares are bordered by the small premaxillaries, the maxillaries, 



