LAND- TOR TOISES. 
57 
the horny shields of the carapace concentrically striated, and the plastron of the 
adult notched behind. One of the species ( T. gigantea ) with smooth shields on a 
truncated plastron is peculiar in having the caudal shield divided, as in the 
Burmese brown tortoise. The elephant-tortoise appears to be one of the largest of 
all the species, attaining a length of about 4 feet. At the present day it is very 
scarce in its native island, where the few survivors receive a certain amount of 
protection from the Government of Mauritius, to which Aldabra belongs. There 
are, however, a few individuals living in Mauritius and the Seychelles. 
Mascarene Of the Mascarene species, the three species from Mauritius 
Tortoises. (T. indica, trisserrata, and inept a), all of which are extinct, are 
characterised by the thinness of their carapace, of which the margins are thickened. 
The Rodriguez tortoise {T. vosmceri ) has a still thinner carapace, which in the 
male does not shelve down in front in the usual manner. Allusion has already 
been made to the numbers in which these tortoises existed in Leguat’s time; but 
till quite recently it was thought that the species was totally extinct. It appears, 
however, that in the Artillery barracks of Port Louis in the Mauritius, there lives 
a very ancient tortoise which, in the opinion of Dr. Gunther, is probably of this 
species. This tortoise is one of two which were imported into the Mauritius by 
the navigator, Captain Marion du Fresne from the Seychelles in 1766; one of 
these having been subsequently presented to the London Zoological Gardens in 
1832 by Sir C. Colville. The latter weighed 289 lbs., and its shell measured 4 feet 
4| inches in length along the curve, and 4 feet 9 inches in width; while in the 
Port Louis specimen the circumference of the shell is 9 feet 3 inches, and its height 
24 feet. Marion’s tortoise, as the Port Louis example is called, is thus definitely 
known to have lived for a hundred and twenty-seven years, and as it was doubtless 
of large size when brought from the Seychelles, and since all these tortoises take 
an immense time to reach large dimensions, it is highly probable that it is an 
actual survivor from the enormous herds that existed in Rodriguez in Leguat’s 
time. From a peculiarity in the structure of the hinder vertebrae of the neck, it 
appears that the tortoises of this species have the power of raising their necks to a 
nearly vertical position, which would give them a wide range of vision. This 
elevated range of vision would accord well with the account given by Leguat, who 
writes concerning these tortoises as follows. “ There’s one thing very odd among 
them; they always place sentinels at some distance from their troop, at the four 
corners of the camp, to which the sentinels turn their backs, and look with the 
eyes, as if they were on the watch.” 
Galapagos The various islands of the Galapagos Group, such as Abingdon, 
Tortoises. Albemarle, Chatham, Hood, and Charles, are the respective homes of 
one or more species of giant tortoise. Of the various species inhabiting these 
islands, the blackish tortoise ( T . nigrita), which is the one given in the illustration 
on p. 54, agrees with two others (T. nigra and T. vicina) in having the horny 
shields of the carapace concentrically striated in the adult; the figured species 
differing from T. nigra in having the plastron notched, instead of truncate 
behind. In the other three species the shields on the back are smooth, while 
the plastron always has its hinder end truncated. In the North Albemarle 
tortoise (T. microphyes), the width of the bridge connecting the upper and lower 
