THE ZooLoGiIst—NovEMBER, 1875. 4679 
sunset crowding about the Ducal Palace. With the exception of 
a few gulls or terns, seen in the distance, no other birds were 
observed. 
When crossing from Dieppe to Newhaven, on the 15th of 
September, several swallows were met with in direct flight for the 
Continent; wind north-east. 
Henry HADFIELD. 
Sept. 30, 1875. 
The Gigantic Land Tortoises of the Mascarene and Galapagos 
Islands.* By Dr. ALBERT GUNTHER. 
(In connection with this paper I would recommend the reader to visit 
the fine collection of living tortoises now exhibiting in the Zoological 
Gardens, Regent's Park.—H. Newman. } 
Ir has been mentioned in a preceding paper that the principal 
mark of distinction is iu the form of the skull, some species having 
a depressed skull with the surface flat above, whilst in others it is 
much higher and convex above. Hand-in-hand with this difference 
in the skull goes another in the pelvis; the flat-headed tortoises 
having a broad, horizontally-dilated bridge between the obturator 
foramina, whilst in the round-headed form the bridge is vertically 
compressed. Such a distinction might have been expected between 
the Galapagos tortoises on the one hand, and the Mascarene races 
on the other; but what justly excites our surprise is that the Gala- 
pagos tortoises and the extinct forms of the Mascarenes belong to 
the same (the flat-headed) type, and that, therefore, a much greater 
affinity exists between them than between the extinct and living 
races of the Mascarenes. 
].—FLAT-HEADED TYPE. 
A. The Galapagos tortoises may be recognized by the invariable 
absence of a nuchal plate, by the convergence of the posterior 
margins of the two gular plates, which never form a straight line, 
by the black colour of the shell, by a large scute of the inner side 
* The substance of this article is contained in a paper read by the author before 
the Royal Society in June, 1847, and will appear in the forthcoming volume of the 
‘Philosophical Transactions,’ and to which I must refer for the scientific portion 
and other details. Some facts,which have come to my knowledge subsequently to 
the reading of this paper, are added—A.G. [The present reprint is from the 
columns of ‘ Nature. —Z, N.] 
