TESTUDO, THE DESERT TORTOISE 



(Gopherus agassizii) 



It is interesting to imagine the frame of mind 

 of those early Western travelers who, wholly- 

 ignorant of the existence of dry-land tortoises, 

 espied for the first time these queer turtle-like 

 creatures shuffling clumsily across their trail. 

 We can almost see them "glowing" like old 

 Tam, himself, "amazed and curious," and 

 rubbing their eyes twice, then once again, to 

 make themselves sure that tortoises in a desert 

 wilderness are things of reality and not the 

 apparitions of a dream. To their minds tor- 

 toises must have always been reptiles closely 

 associated with water, and to find them here in 

 the arid deserts far away from even a suggestion 

 of dampness must have seemed a most extraor- 

 dinary sight if not an anomaly. When their 

 travels had carried them well within the range 

 of this remarkable chelonian, these immigrants 

 must soon have seen a sufficient number of them 

 to feel assured that the first ones they saw were 



