340 Ari'ENDix. 



M. Desforges-Boucber, in hib reports adilressed to the Company 

 from 1759 to 1760, enumerates not only the ships employed in 

 this service, but also the number of tortoises received and carried 

 away by each of them. Four small vessels — la Mignonne, 

 rOiseau, le Volant, and Ja Penelope — were at this time almost 

 universally employed for transporting tortoises, and an officer 

 resided at Rodriguez for superintending them." 



M. Milne-Edwards had not space to reproduce at length^ the 

 reports of M. Desforges-Boucher, in which he speaks of these 

 expeditions. It is sufficient for him to tell us that he has calcu- 

 lated, from the incomplete accounts of these importations, that 

 M. Boucher exported from Rodriguez in less than eighteen months 

 more than thirty thousand (30,000) land-tortoises. When we 

 consider the small extent of this islet, it is not wonderful that 

 these animals, formerly so plentiful, have completely disappeared ; 

 in sjjite of their fecundity, they could not resist such means of 

 destruction. 



What M. Milne-Edwards states about the tortoises equally 

 applies, he says, to the land-birds. " It is evident that the sailors 

 were not sparing in following and killing them. These species, 

 the capture of which was rendered easy by the small develop- 

 ment of their wings, at the same time that the delicacy of their 

 flesh made them sought for, tended to their speedy extinction. 

 In order to explain their extii'patiou, it is not, then, necessary to 

 invoke changes in the biological conditions. The action of man 

 has amply sufficed ; it has been there exercised without hindrance, 

 and with greater facility than anywhere else ; it continues on 

 many other points of the globe, and at the present day one can 

 foresee the period when many apterous birds and large cetaceans, 

 and certain species of Phoca) and Otaries, will be extinguished by 

 man." 



1 Some extracts from the reports are given in a note, an exainple of 

 which will here suffice : — " 1759, 16 Decbr., the Penelope arrives from 

 Rodriguez with 1035 land tortoises and 47 turtles. The cargo was of 

 5,000 of the former and 50 of the latter ; but a passage of eight days 

 reduced the number to the few which she brings." 



