2 
INTEODrCTION. 
island home, we can well account for the multitudes found by the first visitors to those 
islands. 
Leguat (1691) says that " there are such plenty of Land-Turtles in this isle (Rodriguez) 
that sometimes you see two or three thousand of them in a flock, so that you may go above 
a hundred paces on their backs." Down to 1740 they continued to be numerous in 
Mauritius; for Graistt (Hist. Maurit. p. 194) writes in that year, " We possess a great 
abundance of fowl, as well as both Land- and Sea-Turtle, which are not only a great 
resource for the supply of our ordinary wants, but serve to barter with the crews of 
ships who put in here for refreshment in their voyage to India." Yet they appear to 
have been much more scattered in the larger island than in Rodriguez; and, according 
to Admiral Kempinfelt, who visited the latter island in 1761 (see Grant's Maurit. 
p. 100), small vessels were constantly employed in transporting these animals by 
thousands to Mauritius for the service of the hospital. Soon, however, their numbers 
appear to have been rapidly diminished ; the old ones were captured by man, the young 
ones devoured by pigs. Numbers must have succumbed in consequence of the numerous 
conflagrations by which the rank vegetation of the plains was destroyed to make room 
for the plantations of the settler. Early in the present century the work of exter- 
mination appears to have been accomplished, and there is at present not a single living 
example either in the Mauritius or in Rodriguez. 
Our knowledge of the indigenous fauna of the island of Reunion is still extremely 
meagre: but although no remains whatever of a large Tortoise from that island are 
known to exist in any collection, there cannot be any doubt that a gigantic Land-Tor- 
toise once inhabited Reunion, as may be seen from the following historical evidence. 
In the continuation of P. G. Verhuff's ' Voyage into the East Indies ' (De Bry, Ind. 
Orient. Supplementum nonae Partis. Francof. 1633. fol.) it is stated on p. 23: — 
[Anno 1611] "Die 27 [Decembr. mens.] pervenerunt ad Masquerinen*, insulam nempe, 
80 miliaribus a Mauritii insula distantem, quae 16 miliaria circuitu et ambitu suo con- 
tinet, nec ullis hominibus habitatur, licet ad victum necessarium Testudines piscesque et 
volucres multiplices abunde suppeditet." 
In a letter of R. P. Brown, published in ' Lettres edifiantes et curieuses ecrites des 
Missions etrangeres, par quelques Missionaires de la Compagnie de Jesus,' xxx. Recueil, 
Paris, 1773, 12mo, p. 324, we read that about 60 years ago a party of Frenchmen landed 
from Madagascar on Reunion, which they found uninhabited, and that for the first two 
■we have equally reliable evidence, as appears from a paragraph in the ' Ceylon Observer,' April 25th, 1870. 
' We learn ou good authority that the ' Tortoise ' exhibited by Mr. Sj mons, Uplands, the one which is so well 
known at the Mutwal end of the town, lived in the Uplands compound for between 150 and 200 years. It was 
sent from Java as a present to one of the Dutch governors here," &c. 
A very young example, 7 inches long, sent to me from Aldabra by Dr. W. M'Gregor, was three years old. 
* The Portuguese voyager Mascaregnas gave his own name to the island of Bourbon, which formerly had 
been called by his countrymen Cerne. 
