422 GREENWICH. 



it indigenous or introduced, merely adding a note on 

 its longevity. " Some of these have been knovs'n to 

 live [in Jamaica ?] thirty years." 



Mr. Hill has favoured me with a note or two on 

 the subject of a Jamaican Testudo. " April 2nd, 

 1846. — I have learned that some time ago a Land 

 Tortoise, — indubitably such, the limbs being short 

 and stumpy, the carapace very convex, and covered 

 with pyramidal angular plates, — was taken out of a 

 pinguin hedge near this town. I must mention that 

 Land Tortoises, brought from South America and 

 elsewhere, frequently get away, and are in this 

 manner found solitary. Some fifty of a prodigious 

 size, brought by a Spaniard for sale, broke away 

 near Kingston, and several, for months after, were 

 found round about. One used to range the wood- 

 lands near the sea at Greenwich, where, in conse- 

 quence of some injury it received after it had been a 

 year out, it was found dead. I saw its remains 

 under one of the trees there a little while ago." 



^' May 19th, 1846. — I have heard of two more 

 instances of Land Tortoises being taken under such 

 circumstances as would lead to the supposition that 

 they were indigenous. In both instances they ap- 

 peared to have quitted their usual haunts in search 

 of water. They were taken in the midst of pre- 

 vailing droughts ; and one, which was captured after 

 it had reached the stream where it had been drink- 

 ing, bore the evidence of having travelled from far ; 

 the interstices of the scales on the legs being charged 

 with a fine red dust ; and red earth not being found 

 any where in the plain in which it was taken. They 



