COLOSSOCHELYS ATLAS. 375 



The whole of its organization proved that it was strictly a land 

 animal, with herbivorous habits, and probably of the most 

 inoffensive nature. The generic name given by Capt. Cautley 

 and Dr. Falconer to the fossil has reference to its colossal size 

 (koXossos et ;!^;eA.us), and the specific designation of Atlas, to 

 its fitting representation of the mythological Tortoise that 

 sustained the world in the systems of ancient cosmogony. 



The principal part of the remains of the Colossochelys were 

 collected during a period of eight or nine years along a range of 

 about 100 miles of hilly country. They belong in consequence 

 to a great number of diiSerent animals, varying in size and age. 

 From the circumstances under which they are met with, in 

 crushed fragments, contained in upheaved strata which have 

 undergone considerable disturbance, there is no chance that 

 an entire shell, or anything approaching a complete skeleton 

 in a single specimen, will ever be disentombed from the 

 Sewalik hills. Wlien the first fragments, in huge amorphous 

 masses, were found by the discoverers, they were utterly at a 

 loss what to make of them, and for many months could do 

 nothing more than look upon them in bewildered and nearly 

 hopeless admiration. But no sooner was the clue found to 

 the nature of a single specimen than every fragment moved 

 into its place, so as to form a consistent whole. 



Dr. Falconer then entered upon the question 'whether 

 are there groiuids for determining the period when the 

 gigantic Tortoise became extinct, or are there any indications 

 that it may have lived down to be contemporary with any 

 portion of the human period ? ' 



The Moa bird or Dinornis of New Zealand — a parallel 

 instance of an equally gigantic form in another order — 

 appears from very strong evidence only to have become very 

 recently extinct, and any apparent a 'priori improbability 

 that an animal so hugely disproportionate to existing species 

 as the Colossochelys should have survived, so as to have been 

 coexistent with man in the East, is removed by the fact that 

 other species of Chelonians, which were coeval with the 

 Colossochelys in the Sewalik fauna, have reached to the present 

 time ; and what is true in this respect, in regard to one 

 species of the tribe, may be equally true of any or every 

 other placed imder the same circumstances. Some of the 

 Crocodiles — in particular the Crococlilus longirostris or 

 ' Gavial' — now existing in India, appear to be absolutely 

 identical with forms dug out of the Sewalik hills. The same 

 result was found to apply to the existing Emys tecta, 

 now a common species in all parts of India. Dr. Falconer 

 mentioned that there were other cases which appeared to 

 yield similar results, but that the evidence had not been 



