TESTUDO PARDALIS. 
Testee ossece mensura . 
ped. unc, lin, 
Longitudo dorsi.1 5 0 
Latitudo ejusdem.011 0 
Altitudo.0 8 5 
Longitudo sterni . ... . 1 3 0 
It is surprising that a species of Tortoise at once so beautiful and of so large 
a size, inhabiting, too, a region so much frequented by travellers, should have 
so long remained unknown to naturalists. The first specimen noticed was one 
which I kept alive for about a year and a half; it had in the summer months 
the range of a small orchard, where it fed heartily on grass, which it appeared 
to prefer to any other food, and which it plucked with a sidelong movement 
of the head, exactly similar to that of a goose. The neck was so remarkably 
long and extensile, that the head could be easily raised much above the level 
of the top of the back, and thus the animal was enabled to look round on all 
sides, merely by turning the head; a peculiarity which I have never observed 
in any other species. After its death I opened it, and found it filled with an 
immense number of eggs, of all sizes from that of a pin’s head to that of a pigeon’s 
egg. There was no appearance of shell even on the largest, and they were 
probably not a third of their full size. I believe there could not be less than 
two hundred in all. 
This is the largest known species of land Tortoise, excepting Testudo indica , 
which it very much resembles in general form, and even in the details of the 
plates. Besides the great difference in the colour, however, the areolas of the 
costal plates in the present species are placed close to the upper margin, whilst 
in T. indica they are central. 
I am inclined to believe that Seba’s figure, referred to in the list of synonyms, 
and copied by Shaw under the name of Testudo elegans, may be the very young 
of this species. 
0 
