2o 4 FAUNA OF MASCARENE, COMORO, AND SEYCHELLE ISLANDS 



The nearest living relative of the dodo and the solitaire is the tooth-billed 



pigeon {Didunculus strigirostris) of Samoa, referred to in a later chapter. 



As mentioned above, the islands of the Mascarene group, in 

 Giant Tortoises. ..,■.«■! F , , » , \ 



common with Madagascar, were formerly the home of a large number 



of species of giant land-tortoises. These tortoises, all of which are characterised 

 by the blackness of the horny plates covering their shells, like their relatives of 

 the Galapagos Islands, are nothing more than overgrown representatives of the 

 genus typified by the common tortoise of southern Europe. They are survivors 

 of a group which was widely distributed during the Tertiary period over the 

 greater part of the world (exclusive of Australasia and South America), some 

 of the members of which, like the huge Testudo gigas of the Siwalik Hills of 

 northern India, greatly exceeded in size any of the existing species. The earliest 

 representative of these great tortoises was T. amnion of the lower Tertiary forma- 

 tions of the Fayum district of Egypt, a descendant of which is probably to be 

 found in the greaved tortoise of the Sudan, referred to in an earlier chapter. The 

 latter species is, indeed, to all intents and purposes a giant tortoise, although it 

 differs from the Mascarene and Galapagos species in its brown colouring. Whether 

 the Mascarene and the Galapagos tortoises are both the descendants of giant 

 species, or whether they were independently derived from species of ordinary size, 

 is a question to which it is almost impossible to give a satisfactory answer. It 

 is equally difficult to account for the extermination of giant tortoises (with the 

 exception of the aforesaid Sudani species) from the continents of the world, as such 

 heavily armoured creatures have apparently little or nothing to fear from other 

 animals, and are not likely to have been starved by the competition of more 

 specialised types. 



At the time that they abounded on all the islands of the Mascarene group 

 these tortoises formed a valuable food-supply for passing vessels; and many of 

 them were transported from their native islands to other parts of the world, where 

 rejjresentatives of species that were otherwise extinct have survived to the present 

 day. This has, of course, caused great confusion and difficulty in regard to the 

 proper habitat of some of the species. From Madagascar giant tortoises seem to 

 have disappeared long before the historic period. 



Of the Mascarene species, one of the largest is Marion's tortoise ( T. sumeirei), 

 of which five living specimens were carried from their original island home by 

 Mai'ion du Fresne to Port Louis in the Mauritius in the year 1766. The largest 

 of these, which was taken over with the barracks at Port Louis when Mauritius 

 was ceded to England in 1810, and was then believed to be at least a century 

 old, was living a few years ago in the Artillery Barracks at that port, but was 

 nearly blind. Marion du Fresne obtained, it seems, his cargo of giant tortoises 

 from the Seychelles, which may accordingly be regarded as the rightful home of 

 Testudo sumeirei. Curiously enough, a tortoise, T. gigantea, which was origin- 

 ally a native of North Aldabra Island, survives at the present day only in the 

 Seychelles, where examples are kept by the planters in a half-domesticated con- 

 dition. The shell of one of these giants measured just over 52 inches along the 

 curve and 40^ inches in a straight line ; the transverse diameter across the curve 

 being 50 inches, and the weight of the whole reptile 358 lbs. South Aldabra, on 



