DR. A. GUNTHER ON GIGANTIC LAND-TORTOISES. 
255 
thickly peopled with Tortoises that they applied the Spanish word for tortoise to their 
discovery. In Dampier’s time (1680) it was the common practice of vessels to visit 
those islands for a supply of water and tortoises. In his ‘ New Voyage round the 
W orld’ (Lond. 1697, 8vo), p. 101, he says: — “ The Land-Turtle are here so numerous 
that 5 or 600 men might subsist on them alone for several months, without any other 
sort of provision. They are extraordinary large and fat, and so sweet that no pullet 
eats more pleasantly. One of the largest of these creatures will weigh 150 or 200 
weight [pounds], and some of them are 2 foot or 2 foot 6 inches over the callapee 
or belly [across the sternum] They have very long small necks and little 
heads.” 
The condition of this group of islands and of the animals inhabiting them appears 
to have been unaltered when they were visited by Amasa Delano and David Porter 
the former a captain in the merchant service, the latter in the navy of the United 
States. 
Delano (‘Narrative of Voyages and Travels,’ Boston, 1817, 8vo) made several visits 
to the Galapagos, the first in 1800 (p. 369). He found plenty of Tortoises in Hood’s, 
Charles, James, and Albemarle Islands. He gives a good description of them, noticing 
particularly the long, serpent-like neck (p. 376): — “I have seen them with necks 
between two and three feet long .... They would raise their heads as high as they 
could, their necks being nearly vertical, and advance with their mouths wide open .... 
They are perfectly harmless. ... I have known them live several months without food ; 
but they always in that case grow lighter, and their fat diminishes. ... I carried at one 
time from James Island 300 very good terrapins to the island of Massa Fuero; 
and there landed more than one half of them, after having them more than 60 days on 
board my ship. Half of the number landed died as soon as they took food .... those 
that survived the shock which was occasioned by this sudden transition from total 
abstinence to that of abundance soon became tranquil, and appeared to be as healthy 
and as contented with the climate as when they were at their native place ; and they 
would probably have lived as long, had they not been killed for food. ... I have carried 
them to Canton at two different times.” 
Porter informs us of many interesting particulars in his ‘ Journal of a Cruise made 
to the Pacific Ocean’ (New York, 1822, 8vo, in 2 vols.). He found the Tortoises (in 
1813) in greater or less abundance in all the larger islands of the group which he visited, 
viz. Hood’s, Marlborough, James, Charles, and Porter’s (Indefatigable) Islands. On 
Chatham Island, where he made a short stay, a few of their shells and bones were seen, 
but they appeared to have been long dead (vol. i. p. 231) ; and on Albemarle Island, 
the largest of the group, none were observed by him, evidently because he landed here 
only for a few hours on the south-western point. Abingdon, Binloe, Downe, and 
Barrington Islands were not visited by him. Some of the Tortoises captured weighed from 
oOO to 400 pounds (p. 127). “ Their steps are slow, regular, and heavy ; they carry their 
body about a foot from the ground. . . . Their neck is from 18 inches to 2 feet in length, 
2 m 2 
