LAND TORTOISE. 421 



away considerably up the stream ; and the strange as- 

 sertion, that theManati, a cetaceous inhabitant of the 

 Black River with the Crocodile, will remain watching 

 a dead body, if brought within its haunts, — was 

 witnessed in the case of this girl, by the body being 

 found under the guardianship of a Manati, up at a 

 place called Salt-spring, a tributary of the Black 

 River, where Manatis abound." 



LAND TORTOISES. 



Some of the old writers mention, among the ani- 

 mals of Jamaica, a Tortoise, to which they assign the 

 name of Hicatee. As they distinguish it from the 

 Marsh Turtles, we may consider it to have been a 

 true terrestrial species, one of the Testudinida ; but 

 whether actually indigenous or imported, is doubtful. 

 Animals existing in a country in an independent feral 

 state, have a right to a place in the local Fauna, even 

 though the race has been originally introduced ; but 

 it was the custom of some of the earlier naturalists, 

 as Browne for example, to enumerate and describe 

 such animals as they saw in the country, though con- 

 fessedly imported and preserved in confinement ; on 

 which principle the whole contents of Wombwell's 

 menagerie ought to be described in a History of Bri- 

 tish Quadrupeds. The author just named mentions 

 in his Natural History of Jamaica, " The Hicatee or 

 Land Turtle," with the following remark : " This 

 species is a native of the mainland, but frequently 

 imported to Jamaica, where it is common." Long, 

 in his enumeration of the animals of the island, also 

 mentions it, without indicating whether he considers 



