GIANT TOETOISES. 169 



tius, Rodriguez, and Reunion. In Mauritius tliese 

 tortoises were first discovered by Van Neck, the discoverer 

 of tlie dodo, in 1529, ivlio relates that some of theur were 

 of such liuge dimensions that six men could be seated on 

 their shells. In Eeuuion, the voyager Boutehoc writes 

 that he took twenty-four giant tortoises from beneath a 

 single tree, in the year 1618 ; while Leguat, in 1691, states 

 that in Rodriguez " there are such plenty of land-turtles in 

 this isle that sometimes you see two or three thousand of 

 them in a drove, so that yon may go about a hundred 

 paces on their backs." The Reunion tortoises, of which 

 not a single specimen remains in our museums, seem to 

 have been the first to disap])ear, although at what date is 

 uncertain. A solitary individual apjsarently, however, 

 survives at Mauritius, where it has lived for considerably 

 more than a century, having been imjjorted from the 

 Seychelles, where it was doubtless carried from Reunion. 

 Do^ra to the year 1710 these reptiles were still abundant 

 in Mauritius, but by 1761, when vessels were employed in 

 transporting them to that island from Rodriguez as food, 

 they had probably become scarce ; while in both islands 

 the whole race became extinct early in the present century, 

 mainly owing to the ship-loads which were carried away 

 for food ; although rats and pigs have largely aided in the 

 work of destruction by devouring the eggs and young. It 

 may be added that giant tortoises were formerly widely 

 distributed over the world ; but that within the historic 

 jjeriod they have existed only in the Mascarenes, in 

 Aldabra, to the north of Madagascar, and in the far distant 

 Clalapjagos group. In Aldabra, whence they have been 

 introduced into the Seychelles, they are now becoming 

 very scarce, although we believe they receive some kind of 

 protection. The Galapagos tortoises are, however, only 

 too likely to share the fate of those of the Mascarenes, 

 most of the larger specimens having been already killed 

 off. Indeed, it is highly ]jrobalile that the Abingdon 

 tortoise, remarkable for the extreme thinness of its 

 shell, specimens of which were obtained in 187o for our 

 national collection, may already be numbered with the 

 extinct. 



