1134 Marvels of the Universe 
by half, and had choked itself, or rather the original part of itself, by winding its pendent roots 
spirally around the parent stem. “It seemed just that a Fig, so accustomed to choking other 
trees, should thus once in a while choke itself.’ 
A GIANT ARMOURED TORTOISE 
BY W. P. PYCRAFT, F.Z.S. 
TORTOISES, as we have already remarked in these pages, are justly entitled to a place among the 
world’s marvels. And there are some species which stand out, as it were, from the rest of their 
kind on account of one or more conspicuous departures from what we may call the traditions of 
the tribe. The extinct Giant Tortoise, Miolania, is one of these. In the first place, it was an 
armoured Tortoise ; we might, indeed, without violence, describe it as a super-dreadnought among 
Tortoises, since all Tortoises are armoured. But in Miolania the accessory armature took the form 
of great flanges and bosses of bone on the skull, and of formidable spiked rings of bone on the tail, 
recalling those of the ancient Giant Armadillo Glyptodon. Was this additional armour demanded by 
reason of the creature’s environment, or are we to regard it in the light of ornamentation ? To 
such questions no answer seems possible. 
By almost common consent Miolania is regarded as one of the “ Side-necked”’ Tortoises. So- 
called because the head is drawn under cover of the shell, not by the backward pull of the neck as 
SKULL OF OWEN’S MIOLANIA. 
This fossil skull was found in Queensland, and is now in the Natural History Museum. In this photograph the pair of 
stout horns are seen to greater advantage. 
