Chap. IX.] 
THE TORTOISE. 
289 
feigned death and lay motionless, with its eye sclosed ; 
but, on being pricked with a spear, it suddenly regained 
all its activity. It was at last finished by a harpoon, 
and then opened. Its maw contained several small 
tortoises, and a quantity of broken bricks and gravel, 
taken medicinally, to promote digestion. 
During our journeys we had numerous opportunities 
of observing the habits of these hideous creatures, and. 
I am far from considering them so formidable as they 
are usually supposed to be. They are evidently not 
wantonly destructive ; they act only under the influence 
of hunger, and even then their motions on land are 
awkward and ungainly, their action timid, and their 
whole demeanour devoid of the sagacity and courage 
which characterise other animals of prey. 
Testudinata. Tortoise. — Land tortoises are numerous, 
but present no remarkable features beyond the beautiful 
marking of the starred variety 1 , which is common in the 
north-western province around Putlam and Chilaw, and 
is distinguished by the bright yellow rays which diversify 
the deep black of its dorsal shield. From one of these 
which was kept in my garden I took a number of flat 
ticks (Ixodes), which adhere to its fleshy neck in such 
a position as to baffle any attempt of the animal itself 
to remove them ; but as they are exposed to constant 
danger of being crushed against the plastron during 
the protrusion and retraction of the head, each is 
covered with a horny case almost as resistant as the 
carapace of the tortoise itself. Such an adaptation of 
structure is scarcely less striking than that of the 
fell, and sunk with it to the Supreme Court, 10th Jany., 1861, 
bottom." — Letter from Goone- 1 Testudo stellata. 
ratste Modliar, interpreter of the 
TJ 
