1876.] LETTER FROM COMMANDER W. E. COOKSON, R.N. 525 



now so scarce, have long been resorted to by oil-makers. (Admiral 

 Fitzroy found a party making oil on James Island in 1835.) 



"To show the havoc made amongst the tortoises by oil-makers, I 

 may mention that at the time of our visit a party of seven were making 

 oil on Albemarle Island ; during the last twelve months they had made 

 3000 gallons of oil, which quantity would represent the destruction 

 of at least an equal number of tortoises ; for although a large one 

 will yield as much as six gallons of oil, the average yield would not 

 be more than one. 



" The whalers, who till within the last four or five years visited 

 the islands to the number of 40 or 50 annually, committed "great 

 destruction amongst them ; their crews living on them for several 

 months, and when they left the ground taking large numbers to sea 

 with them, some ships as many as a hundred. 



" Of late years these defenceless creatures have had another very 

 destructive enemy amongst them, viz. the wild dogs, descendants of 

 dogs that have been turned adrift from ships or strayed away from 

 time to time. Dogs are now roaming wild on all the larger islands. 

 I was told that they keep in small packs of about eight or ten. We 

 heard them on several occasions amongst the hills on Albemarle 

 Island ; and, judging from their cry, I should think there were about 

 that number in the pack. They were described as large, gaunt, 

 savage animals ; but I could not get any accurate information as 

 to their colour, and whether it was uniform or not. These animals 

 must make great havoc amongst the tortoises. They are said to watch 

 when the newly hatched young ones first begin to agitate the sand, 

 then to scrape it away and devour the whole brood. They prey 

 also upon the half-grown animals; two which we fouud, each about 

 GO lb. in weight, had the back part of the breast-plate gnawed by 

 dogs; in one it was still bleeding; and I saw the shells of two others of 

 about the same size, from which the animals had been eaten clean out. 



" On account of the size of Albemarle Island, and the inaccessi- 

 bility of many parts of it, I think tortoises are still very numerous 

 on it and likely to be so for a long period in spite of their many 

 enemies ; but on the other islands, including the smaller ones, such as 

 Abingdon and Hood Islands, where they have been hitherto com- 

 paratively unmolested, I think that they ate now doomed to speedy 

 extermination, for this reason, that within the last two years the 

 Orchilla trade has passed into the hands of one individual, and the 

 crop is now gathered by a gang of GO or 80 men working together, 

 instead of by a number of small parties scattered on the different 

 islands. At the time of our visit the Orchilla crop had just been 

 gathered from Hood Island, and the camp after a four months' 

 residence on it had moved to Chatham Island. It was said that 

 about 70 tortoises had been killed by these people on Hood Island ; 

 and our guide thought it most probable that none were left alive. 

 As they pass on to Abingdon and the other smaller islands, the 

 tortoises on them must share the same fate ; for in three or four 

 months a party of 60 men, but sparingly provisioned and hunting 

 eagerly for them, would be almost sure to discover every individual." 



Proc. Zool. Soc— 18/6, No. XXXV. 3^) 



