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DE. A. GUN THEE ON GIGANTIC LAND-TOETOISES. 
2. “ Of bones from Mauritius, very abundant in the district of Flacq.” 
3. “ Of bones from the island of Rodriguez ” *. 
Similar bones had been discovered and had reached Europe many years ago. In 
the year 1830 M. J. Desjardins, one of the first explorers of the fauna of Mauritius, 
had discovered “ three deposits of the remains of Tortoises ”f . The same naturalist sent 
a bone of a Tortoise, found, in 1786, in a cave in Rodriguez, with some remains of the 
Solitaire to ParisJ, where they were examined by Cuvier and Blainville, who erro- 
neously stated them to have been recently found under a bed of lava in Mauritius §. 
Another Mauritian naturalist, C. Telfair, in searching, in 1832, for bones of the Solitaire 
in Rodriguez, succeeded in obtaining “ numerous bones of the extremities of one or 
more large species of Tortoise,” which were presented to the Zoological Society of 
London, and exhibited at one of the Meetings [|. These bones were still in the posses- 
sion of the Society three or four years 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. 
The causes of the indifference with which these remains were treated are twofold : — 
First, the all-absorbing interest centred in the bird-remains ; and, secondly, the belief 
that the bones were those of a still-existing gigantic species of Tortoise commonly called 
Testudo indica. Under this name were comprised all gigantic Land-Tortoises brought 
to Europe in ships which, on their return from India, had touched at the Mascarenes. 
When, at a later period, zoologists became acquainted with a similar Tortoise from the 
Galapagos Islands, some considered the latter specifically distinct, whilst others main- 
tained that they were specimens of the same species, “ which had been scattered by man 
in different tropical parts of the globe” (Gray, Shield Rept. 1855, p. 7). 
However, a closer examination and comparison of the remains at my disposal revealed 
important differences unmistakably pointing at a multiplicity of species ; and as the 
remains were of a comparatively very recent period, so that I could reasonably expect 
to find carapaces, skeletons, or even stuffed examples of the very same species in our 
collections, it became imperative, for the proper interpretation of the Mauritian remains, 
to include in my researches the forms known or supposed to be still living. The results 
of these researches were startling, and may arrest the attention of the zoologist all the 
more, as the facts elucidated bring us face to face with the mystery of the birth and 
life of an animal type. I may shortly indicate them as follows : — 
1. Mauritius and Rodriguez were formerly inhabited by several species of gigantic 
Tortoises, the Rodriguez species differing more markedly from those of Mauritius than 
* Letter from L. Bolton, Esq., dated Oct. 18, 1872. t Proc. Comm. Zool. Soc. i. p. 45. 
X Proc. Comm. Zool. Soc. i. p. Ill ; Strickland and Melville, c The Dodo,’ pp. 51, 53. 
§ Edinb. Journ. Nat. Sc. iii. p. 30. || Proc. Zool. Soc. 1833, p. 31. 
With a dismay excusable in an ornithologist, Strickland exclaims (l. c. p. 52), “Alas ! the bones of the 
Solitaire, apterous as it was, had flown away, and the only hones that remained belonged to Tortoises ! ” 
