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American Museum of Natural History. 
DESERT TORTOISE (Gop/iems berlandieri). Length: 1 foot. Range: Southern 
Texas and northern Mexico. 
weighs about nine pounds, the female being slightly larger than the male. 
When an old gopher, wandering along the sandy terrain, sees danger 
coming it seems to resign itself to its fate by drawing in its head and limbs 
and sinking down. The younger and more daring gophers, however, make 
a beeline for their burrows with about as much rapidity as could be opti¬ 
mistically expected from such slow-moving creatures. Should a man seize 
them, they attempt to kick their way to freedom with their clubbed feet. 
If it is lucky enough to avoid the dangers besetting tortoises, the 
gopher may live for more than a hundred years. 
Another tortoise inhabiting the New World is the red-footed tortoise 
of northern South America and the West Indies. In the Antilles it is almost 
extinct according to Grant. Ranging as far south as Argentina is a related 
species which, like its red-footed relative, has a shell two feet long. 
193 
