TORTOISES. 57 



struggle for light and air amongst the dense vegetation of the 

 forest. The tree-frogs are very numerous in the southern 

 interior provinces, and with their webbed feet cling by scores 

 to the verandahs of houses, as well as to the trees, looking 

 like a small patch of bright-green jelly. 



The other groups are of less interest. There are several 

 species of tortoises allied to African genera ; one {Pyxis), the 

 geometric or box-tortoise, having the carapace divided into 

 large hexagons beautifully marked. These may be seen 

 basking in the sun on small spits of sand rising just above 

 the surface of the rivers. In a very recent geological era 

 Madagascar was also the home of at least two very large 

 species of tortoise (Testudo abrupta and Emys gigantea), the 

 remains of which have been found by M. Grandidier in the 

 south of the island. These are probably extinct on the 

 mainland of Madagascar, but they seem to have inhabited the 

 Mascarene group of Mauritius, Bourbon, and Eodriguez up to 

 the arrival of man in these islands. But having been reck- 

 lessly destroyed, they now survive only in the small and 

 uninhabited Aldebra islands, near the Seychelles group. 

 There is a fine specimen of this gigantic tortoise in the 

 British Museum, and two living examples in the Begent's 

 Bark Gardens. The male tortoise, which is much the larger 

 of the two, is 5 feet 5 inches in length, and 5 feet 9 inches 

 in breadth — broader, in fact, than it is long. It weighs about 

 eight hundred pounds, and is believed to be able to carry a 

 ton weight on its back. It is now seventy years old, but is 

 still young, and likely to grow to a much greater size. Prom 

 its geometric-shaped plates it seems to be allied to the smaU 

 living geometric tortoise of Madagascar, and probably still 

 more closely to the elephantine tortoise of the Seychelles and 

 Comoro Islands. 



The smaller amphibia are not very well known ; but the 

 crocodiles are familiar to every traveller in the island. 

 These unpleasant-looking reptiles swarm in every river and 

 lake, and even in many small pools. During a journey down 

 the Betsiboka river we saw as many as a hundred in a day, 

 a dozen together being often seen basking in the sun on a 

 sandbank ; while other travellers have seen • as many as a 



