1889-1 Gigantic Land Tortoises. 1045 
What we know to-day is the following : The tortoise of Charles 
Island is with very little doubt extinct. The only authentic 
specimen brought from this island is now in the Boston Museum 
of Natural History, and is the type of Tcstudo galapagocnis. 
T. abingdonii {ephippium) the tortoises from Abingdon Island, 
seem to be very much reduced, perhaps extinct. 
The tortoises on Albemarle are still numerous. The northern 
form is T. inicrophyes, the southern form T. chpliantopns Harlan {T. 
vidua Giinther). The localities of T. guntheri {T. clcphantopus 
Gunther) and T. nigrita D. and B. are not known ; but, since 
tortoises have been recorded from Chatham, Indefatigable and 
James Islands, they belong to one of these ; but the future must 
decide to which special island. Perhaps this question can still 
be decided, if the tortoises have not become entirely extinct on 
these islands, which I do not suspect. 
Whether the tortoises said to be on Duncan Island belong to a 
new species, or one of the six known ones, is a question. The 
same is to be said of the tortoises inhabiting Hood Island. 
Nothing is known in regard to tortoises about Barrington, Burn- 
loe and Tower Islands. 
I fear that the history of the land tortoises of the Galapagos 
will never be solved ; if it is to be, a scientific expedition must be sent 
out soon, with the object of making a full examination of each 
land of this group. 
SOME OF THE OLDER ACCOUNTS OF THE L.\ND TORTOISES. 
At the end of the seventeenth century the Galapagos Islands 
were frequently vi^'ted by buccaneers. Cowley, Wafer and 
especially Dampier have given accounts of these visits, and it was 
at this time that Cowley published a map of the islands. The 
first visit was in 1684 by Cowley, Cooke, Dampier and Ed- 
ward Davis. They arrived the 3 1 st of May. The following year 
Davis, Wafer, Knight and Harris were again there, and in 1687 
Davis and Wafer made the third visit. Dampier was there at 
different times, and to him we owe the first account of the land- 
tortoises. " There is no place in the world," he says, " so much 
