1046 The American Naturalist. [December, 
stored with Guanos and Land-Tortoises as these Isles. The first 
are fat, and of an extraordinary size, and exceedingly tame ; and 
the Land-Tortoises so numerous that some hundred men may 
subsist on them for a considerable time, being very fat, and as 
pleasant food as a pullet ; and of such bigness, that one of them 
weighs 1 50-200 pounds, and are from two feet to two feet six 
inches over the belly, whereas, in any other places, I never met 
with any above 30 pounds weight, though I have heard some say, 
that at St. Lawrence or Madagascar there are also some very large 
ones." They " are in shape like the first, [Hackatee= Chrysemys 
ornata, Gray] with long necks and small heads, only they are 
much bigger." "The oil saved from them was kept in jars, and 
used instead of butter to eat with dough-boys or dumplings." 
"We lay here feeding sometimes on land-turtle, sometimes on sea- 
turtle, there being plenty of either sort ; but the land-turtle, as 
they exceed in sweetness, so do they in numbers ; it is incredible 
to report how numerous they are." 
In June, 1700, the French captain de Beauchesne visited the 
Islands, but nothing is said in the Journals of his voyage about 
the tortoises, so far as I know. 
The first good account of the tortoises was given by Woodes 
Rogers, who was on the Islands in September, 1707. 
" Some of the largest of the Land-Turtles," he says, " are about 
100 pounds weight, and those of the sea upwards of 400. The 
Land-Turtles laid eggs on our deck [13th of September]. Our 
men brought some from the shore about the Bigness of a goose 
Q^g, white, with a large big shell, exactly round. The creatures 
are the ugliest in Nature, the shell not unlike the top of an old 
hackney-coach, as black as jet, and so is the outside skin, but 
shriveled and very rough. The legs and neck are ver>' long, and 
about the bigness of a man's wrist ; and they have club-feet, as 
big as one's fist, shaped much like those of an elephant, with five 
thick nails on the fore-foot and but four behind, and the head 
little, and visage small like snakes, and look very old and bleak. 
When at first surprised they shrink their neck, head and legs 
under their shell. Two of our men, with Lieutenant Stratton and 
the trumpeter of the Duchess, affirm they saw vast large ones of 
