126 
ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
areas rippled and annoyed by breezes,—tantaliz¬ 
ing visual proof that somewhere at least there 
were cool and refreshing breezes. 
Beneath our feet were the lava rocks that 
formed the entire surface of the outer slopes 
of the island, usually with a maximum size 
of one or two feet, and with exceedingly 
rough and often sharp surfaces. When stepped 
upon these rocks gave forth a clear ringing 
note, much like that produced by striking 
together two, old, well-preserved, Dutch bricks. 
Rising from the interstices between the lava 
blocks were small bushes growing from four 
to ten feet high, gray-barked and sparsely 
leaved. Here and there a patch of grass 
attempted to rear its head, and occasionally 
a small cactus pushed forth its spiny body, 
extracting its sustenance from an infinitesimal 
amount of decomposed lava. 
Great yellow spiders and an occasional 
silvery-gray one, had spread their filmy webs 
in intricate patterns from every branch and 
leaf and twiglet, forming open-air labyrinths 
through which insects had to pick their way 
or else pay the penalty for failure. The first 
man on the trail tried to destroy as many 
of these webs as possible, and whenever that 
unfortunate person neglected to do so, one 
became aware of a sticky, webby, viscid mass 
cemented to one’s face. 
Half-way up the side of the mountain the 
character of the vegetation changed slightly. 
Grasses were more abundant, and the walking 
consequently more difficult. The cacti had en¬ 
larged, and by reason of their tree-like stems 
might be dignified by being called trees. Some 
of these strange plants were over a foot in 
diameter at the ground, going upward, pillar¬ 
like, to ten or twelve feet. Their thick, heavy, 
spiny leaves grew at absurd angles, growing 
out of one another like the symbols of an 
inverted genetics chart. Occasionally they 
would display to unappreciative finches and 
mockingbirds their small, yellow blossoms. 
Slowly and yet more slowly we climbed up¬ 
ward and onward, ascending on an average 
three hundred feet an hour, stopping to sip 
a small mouthful of water at each hundred 
feet. One would look ahead, see with relief 
the crest of the hill above, and reach it, only 
to find that it was not the top and that far 
beyond stretched another top. Finally, op¬ 
pressed by perspiration and a firm belief that 
there was no top to the island, we accepted 
our fate and kept plodding on and up, totally 
disregarding everything else but the thought 
that giant tortoises might be at the end. 
At last a shout from the leader made the 
rest realize that the crater—our objective— 
was in sight, and in a few moments we had 
all assembled on the rim of the great northern 
crater of Duncan. Our preconceived ideas 
had been of a much smaller bowl. The flat 
bottom stretched over three-quarters of a mile 
from side to side, circular in outline and per¬ 
fect in contour except two tongues of hills 
that entered the southwestern side of the great 
arena. Armies might have fought in this bowl, 
its size was so great. But here practically 
no animal life existed, birds did not nest upon 
its soil, and only a few lizards played about 
on the bottom. However, we hoped that some¬ 
where among the luscious green grass of the 
western side a few tortoises might still exist. 
We rested for a few moments at the edge 
and photographed the surrounding country. 
A figure in the crater would have been a 
desirable stage-property to have in the photo¬ 
graph, so two men volunteered to descend the 
wall to the bottom of the hill and become 
human foot rules. The two descenders left 
with a remark that “We ought to be at the 
bottom in ten or fifteen minutes.” Three- 
quarters of an hour later they emerged upon 
the bottom lands; and as they were so far 
away and so small, they were useless as 
figures for comparison. They were quite in¬ 
visible on the ground glass of the camera, and 
the only way that we at the top could keep 
track of their movements was by watching 
the tiny white specks that denoted their white 
helmets. 
Although the visual gap between the two 
parties was so great, the vocal connection was 
clear and perfect. The acoustics of the crater 
were so good that no difficulty was experienced 
in communicating from top to bottom, either 
when the lower party was just below us or 
when it was at the opposite side of the bowl, 
three-quarters of a mile away. Thus it was 
that from the opposite side of the crater we 
heard an exultant scream of, “I’ve got one!” 
and a second later a confirmatory yell to us 
at the top. The tortoise, a medium-sized 
animal, had been found among the tall, dark- 
greenish grasses that formed the bed of the 
valley of one of the tongues of land that 
projected into the crater. 
Those of us who formed the upper party now 
decided to move along the rim to its lowest 
place on the eastern side of the island so 
that the climb out of the crater might be as 
easy as possible. After half a mile of strug¬ 
gling through thorns and spider-webs we 
