THE GALAPAGOS TORTOISES. 
INTRODUCTION. 
A warm interest of the Museum authorities in the Giant land tortoises has 
led to the acquisition of so many notable specimens, through liberal exchanges 
and purchases, as to demand a revision of portions of the collection, especially 
of that portion directly pertaining to the Galapagos Archipelago. This forms 
the reason for the following article. It is based mainly on partial specimens, 
z. €., carapaces and sternums, but it is thus that these tortoises are most generally 
known, thus that they are most widely, and most commonly represented in 
descriptions, figures, and collections. A few attempts have been made at 
complete characterization of the species by including the anatomical features; 
these were founded on single specimens, and the individuals of the species are 
found to differ too much to admit of accurate distinctions unless confirmed by 
averages secured from repeated dissections, for which much of the material and 
the labor has yet to be supplied. 
The Galapagos Islands form an isolated group in the eastern Pacific on the 
equator about 6° west of Ecuador, or in other words, they are situated between 
89° and 92° of west longitude and between 1° 30’ south and 2° north latitude. 
The largest of them is about eighty miles long and at its widest is about fifty 
miles wide; from this the sizes vary to some that are mere points of rock or 
shoals. They are separated from the mainland by more than four hundred 
miles of deep sea, a thousand fathoms or more in depth. The wide separation 
from the continent, their considerable distances from one another, with great 
differences in altitudes and consequent variations in climate and fertility give 
them exceptional attractions in the eyes of naturalists. Here if anywhere they 
might hope to find the species of the flora and fauna distinct from those of the 
world around them and here it might be possible to trace their development and 
derivation. Questions of origin go back to the advent of the islands themselves; 
neither in case of lands, plants, nor animals have the questions been answered 
with any great degrees of satisfaction. Some authorities have decided that the 
islands are oceanic, that they never were connected with the continent, but 
were pushed up from the sea-bottom by the numerous volcanoes they contain. 
