Vol. II, Pt. I] VAN DENBURGH— GALAPAGOS TORTOISES 355 



killed the tortoises, and saw about seventy old skeletons. We 

 saw a few to the northward. It is a capital place to use mules, 

 and, no doubt, the natives cleaned the tortoises out very thor- 

 oughly here. Beck skinned the tortoise out roughly, and 

 King and I finished it on Sunday. 



Testudo species? 



Barrington Island Tortoise. 

 Plates 123 and 124. 



Nothing has been known of the presence of tortoises on 

 Barrington Island. None of the early navigators mentions 

 having seen them there, and no recent visitor to the archi- 

 pelago has made note of them. Our expedition secured evi- 

 dence that tortoises formerly were fairly abundant on this 

 island. Fragmentary remains of some fourteen individuals 

 were found. These are mostly very old bones — pelves, 

 femora, humeri, etc. — and leave us completely ignorant of the 

 shape and relationship of the tortoises of Barrington Island. 

 A few of these bones are figured in the plate given. Two very 

 old semi-fossil eggs also were found, one of which is shown, 

 photographed together with eggs from Albemarle, Duncan, 

 and Indefatigable islands, in Plate 124. These eggs are 

 larger than any that I have seen from other islands. They 

 (No. 8424) measure 2.55x2.25 and 2.50x2.40 inches. Some 

 of the bones evidently came from very large tortoises, while 

 some with well-united sutures are quite small. It would thus 

 appear that the tortoises of Barrington Island varied consid- 

 erably in size. 



Field Notes. — Feb. 22, 1906. — We met the schooner from 

 Guayaquil, and saw the Captain, who is an Englishman. He 

 says he has taken tortoises on Chatham, and says he ate the 

 last one on the island some twenty years ago. He also reports 

 having taken them off Barrington Island about fifteen years 

 ago, but that they are now extinct. None of our party saw 

 any remains while staying there. He got tortoises from Hood 

 some years ago, probably before 1897. There was an Albe- 

 marle tortoise tied up at the wharf, and the Captain says the 

 tortoise changes his shell completely, but he doesn't know 

 how often ! This one had a plate on the carapace loose. 



