254 
DE. A. GUNTHEE ON GIGANTIC LAND-TOETOISES. 
some food. Thus we are informed that ships leaving the Mauritius or the Galapagos 
used to take upwards of 400 of these animals on board. 
When we consider that these helpless creatures lived in perfect security from all 
enemies, and that nature had endowed them with great longevity*, so that the indi- 
viduals of many generations lived simultaneously in their 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 (Rodri- 
guez) 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 Grant (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 extermination appears to have been accomplished ; and there is at present 
not a single living example either in the Mauritius, in Rodriguez, or Reunion ; 
a few isolated individuals are kept in a state of captivity in the Seychelles, imported 
from the island of Aldabra, the only spot in the Indian Ocean where this Chelonian 
type still lingers in a wild state in small and gradually diminishing 'numbers f. That 
this Tortoise from Aldabra is specifically distinct from the extinct ones of the Mauritius 
and Rodriguez, we shall see subsequently. 
In the second place, I have to refer to the accounts given by the most trustworthy 
visitors to the Galapagos Islands. According to the unanimous testimony of geo- 
graphers, the first discoverers of this archipelago, the Spaniards, found the islands so 
* On this point the testimony is unanimous and not to he doubted : in fact all Tortoises are long-lived. 
Mr. E. W. H. Hoedsworth, E.L.S., informs me of an individual carried to Ceylon (Colombo),- and said to have 
lived in the island for 150 years. Another example, in Cerf Island, is known to have been kept there for the 
last 70 years (unfortunately its present owner asks a price for it commensurate to its age). A very young- 
living example from Aldabra, 7 inches long, sent to me by Dr. W. M'Gregor, is now 3 years old. 
t I am indebted to His Excellency Sir Aether Gordon, Governor of the Mauritius, for this information. 
I may add, from my own experience, that the Aldabra species is but rarely brought to’ London now. In 
the years 1857-59 I saw several large living examples brought into the London market, and one which I 
bought for £4 was considered to be dear. Since that time I have heard of one adult only, beside the young 
sent to me by Dr. M'Gregor. However, they are not readily sold, as hitherto none of them have been kept 
alive in England for any length of time, and most zoological museums possess specimens of this species. 
