Vol. II, Pt. I] VAN DENBURGH^GALAPAGOS TORTOISES 255 



the use of the name Testudo vicina Giinther for the race found 

 at Iguana Cove and throughout southern Albemarle. 



9. Testudo galapagoensis Baur. 1889 



In 1833, Commander John Downes visited the Galapagos 

 Islands in the United States Frigate "Potomac."^ Charles 

 was the only island on which he landed. The visit there ex- 

 tended from August 31 to September 10. "A large number 

 of the crew were daily on shore after terrapin, and frequently 

 exposed throughout the day to a hot sun, with these immense 

 animals on their backs, traveling over the broken lava." The 

 "Potomac" returned to Boston, May 23, 1834. In the fol- 

 lowing month. Captain John Downes, of the "Potomac," pre- 

 sented to the Boston Society of Natural History two living 

 gigantic Galapagos tortoises, weighing nearly three hundred 

 pounds each." There would seem to be little room for doubt 

 that these specimens originated in Charles Island. 



These tortoises, a male and a female, served as material 

 for a paper, by Dr. J. B. Jackson, entitled Anatomical De- 

 scription of the Galapagos Tortoise,^ published in 1837. Jack- 

 son regarded them as identical with Harlan's Testudo ele- 

 phantopus, it being generally thought that all Galapagos tor- 

 toises were of one species. 



Of these two specimens, it appears that only the male is 

 still in the collection of the Boston Society of Natural His- 

 tory. The measurements given by Jackson prove it to be the 

 specimen described by him. What became of the female is 

 not known. 



In his article published in the American Naturalist for De- 

 cember, 1889, Dr. Baur, having compared the skull of the 

 specimen remaining in the collection of the Boston Society 

 with that of a tortoise belonging to the Philadelphia Academy 

 of Sciences, which he mistook for Harlan's original specimen,^ 

 stated that the two were specifically distinct. Without stat- 

 ing any of the points of difference. Dr. Baur named the 



BReynolds, Voyage of the United States Frigate Potomac, 1835, pp. 464-73, 547; 

 c. f. Baur, Am. Nat., xxiii, 1889, p. 1039. 



^Journal Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., i, 1834-37, p. 521. 



8Tom. cit., pp. 443-64, pis. x, xi. 



9Regarding the identity of this specimen see remarks under Testudo elephantopus 

 Harlan, 1827, p. 245. 



