THE GIGANTIC LAND-TOETOISE OF EODEIGUEZ. 
53 
before the publication of Strickland and Melville's memoir on the Dodo (1848); but 
no further attention being paid to them, they were lost. Another portion of Telfair's 
collection was presented by him to the Andersonian Museum at Glasgow, where they 
are still preserved. 
Some well-preserved bones, kindly sent to the writer by M. Bouton, of Port Louis, 
in 1872, satisfactorily proved that the Tortoise of Rodriguez is distinguished from all 
its congeners by well-marked characters (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1873, xi. p. 397); 
but it was only when these remains were supplemented by those preserved in the An- 
dersonian Museum at Glasgow and intrusted to me by the curators of that institution for 
examination, and when, finally, the extensive series collected during the Transit-of- Venus 
Expedition arrived, that our knowledge of its specific characters became tolerably 
complete. No further important additions can be expected from Hodriguez, with the 
exception of the small bones of the foot and caudal vertebrae ; and these will be but 
of small value, unless they be found in their natural connexion. 
With the aid of the carapaces brought home by Mr. Slatee, we are now enabled 
to recognize the Rodriguez Tortoise in some carapaces which reached Europe in the 
last century, probably during the lifetime of the species, and which we find noticed 
by the following herpetologists : — 
1. ScHOEPFF (Histor. Testud, 1792, p. 103, pi. 22. fig. B) has reproduced a sketch 
of a Tortoise 2f feet long, which was communicated to him by Vosmaer, who examined 
the specimen which then was in " Museo Principis Arausionensis " in the Hague. This 
seems to have been a male, with a carapace very similar in form to that of the male 
described below ; its front and hind margins, being still provided with the epidermoid 
scutes, have an undulated outline. SchoepfF was informed by Vosmaer that the cara- 
pace had been brought from the Cape of Good Hope ; and expressing himself uncertain 
whether it should be considered a distinct species, or a sexual, local, or individual 
variety of the Tortoise described by Perrault, he named it " Testiido indica Vosmaeri." 
2. DuMERiL and Bibron recognized Schoepfi"'s Tortoise in a skeleton with complete 
carapace in the Paris Museum. The description of the specimen, whose shell mea- 
sured 75 centims. over the curvature, again perfectly agrees with our male specimen, and 
supplies a detailed account of the outer epidermoid covering. The authors adopt the 
binomial term, " Testudo vosmceri," which, of course, supersedes that proposed by 
myself (Testudo rodericensis, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1873, xi. p, 397). By the sin- 
gular resemblance of the general form of the male of this species to that of some of the 
Galapagos Tortoises, they were led into the error of supposing that T. vosmceri came 
from the Galapagos Islands (Erpetol. Gener. ii. p. 140). 
3. A second specimen, probably a young female, likewise in the Paris Museum, and 
without known history, was considered by the French herpetologists a distinct species, 
Testudo peltastes (ibid. p. 138). This description agrees in every respect with our 
young carapaces from Rodriguez. 
