376 APPENDIX. 



in Port Louis ever since, having survived many accidents and 

 cruel experiments. Its shell is 9 ft. 3 ins. in circumference, and 

 it stands 2 ft. 6 ins. high.^ 



Measures have been taken to preserve the tortoises in Aldabra, 

 and some of these chelonians have been introduced into Flat 

 Island near Mauritius, by the Mauritius Acclimatisation Society, 

 and are, it is said, thriving if not multiplying. They lay their 

 eggs three times in the year. 



In the Botanical Gardens of Pampleraousses, in Mauritius, are 

 two tortoises, of which one, measuring 7 ft. 2 ins. in circumference, 

 stands 1 ft. 8 in. in height ; and there are others at Riviere Seche, 

 belonging to M. Castel, and another to M. Daruty, at Mon Tresor, 

 near Mahebourg, in Mauritius. 



There are others in the Seychelles Islands, whence two fine 

 specimens have been brought to the Zoological Gardens ; and 

 there were for a long time till lately (dating from before the days 

 of Napoleon) two fine specimens in the grounds of Plantation 

 House, at St. Helena, where one died in 1877.^ 



The osseous remains of the Rodriguez tortoises,^ which Dr. 

 Gllnther has examined, and for which he was indebted to M. 

 Bouton and the Trustees of the Glasgow Museum, were found to 

 include some exceedingly large bones^ larger than any of those 

 from Mauritius, and they must have belonged, he states, to 

 individuals of the size of the large living males of Aldabra. 

 From the perforation of the neural ax'cli of the sixth nuchal 

 vertebra Dr. Gunther determines that these animals had the 

 habit of bringing the neck in a vertical position, so that these 



1 See memorandum by Mr. Littleton, in Nature, Aug. 23, 1883, 

 p. 308. 



2 Three enormous tortoises were brought from the Seychelles Islands 

 to the Jardin d'Acclimatisation at Paris, in July 1878. The largest 

 weighed no less than 187 kilogrammes (nearly 4 cwt.), and measured 

 1.17 mfetres in diameter, about 46 inches, and in 1883 some large 

 Aldabra tortoises were placed on Flat Island, by the Mauritius 

 Acchmatisation Society. 



3 See Gigantic Larnl-Tortoisci^, LiviiKj and Extinct, in the Collection of 

 the British Museum, by A. C. L. G. Gunther, M.D., F.R.S., Keeper of the 

 department of Zoology, 1877, p. 52. 



