3. Those species which have the sternum equally immoveable, but covered with eleven horny plates. These sections embrace twenty-two species. In April, 1780, White again writes to Mr. Barrington: The old tortoise that I have mentioned to you so often is become my property. I dug it out of its winter dormitory In the first section Testudo marginata, Schoepf., and in March last, when it was enough awakened to express its Testudo Mauritianica, Dum. and Bibr., are placed. resentment by hissing; and, packing it in a box with In the second are Testudo Græca, Linn.; Testudo geo-earth, carried it eighty miles in post-chaises. The rattle metrica, Linn.; Testudo actinodes, Bell; Testudo parda- and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it, that when lis, Bell; Testudo sulcata, Miller; Testudo nigrita, Dum. I turned it out on a border, it walked twice down to the and Bibr.; Testudo radiata, Shaw; Testudo tabulata, bottom of my garden; however, in the evening, the Walbaum; Testudo carbonaria, Spix; Testudo Polyphe-weather being cold, it buried itself in the loose mould, mus, Daud.; Testudo Schweiggeri, Gray; Testudo ele- and continues still concealed. As it will be under my phantina, Dum. and Bibr.; Testudo nigra, Quoy and eye, I shall now have an opportunity of enlarging my Gaim.; Testudo gigantea, Schweigg.; Testudo Daudinii, observations on its mode of life and propensities, and Dum. and Bibr.; Testudo Perraultii, Dum. and Bibr. perceive already that, towards the time of coming forth, In the third are, Testudo angulata, Dum. and Bibr.; it opens a breathing-place in the ground near its head, Testudo Grai, Dum. and Bibr.; Testudo peltastes, Dum. requiring, I conclude, a freer respiration as it becomes and Bibr.; and Testudo Vosmaeri, Fitzing. more alive. This creature not only goes under the earth from the middle of November to the middle of April, but sleeps great part of the summer; for it goes to bed in the longest days at four in the afternoon, and often does not stir in the morning till late. Besides, it retires to rest for every shower, and does not move at all in wet days. When one reflects on the state of this strange being, it is a matter of wonder to find that Providence should bestow such a profusion of days, such a seeming waste of longevity, on a reptile that appears to relish it so little as to squander more than two-thirds of its existence in a joyless stupor, and be lost to all sensation for months together in the profoundest of slumbers. For an account of the habits of Land-Tortoises we turn to the records of two acute and eloquent observers, whose narratives it would be unjust to give in other words than their own. White of Selborne thus writes to the Honourable Daines Barrington, from Ringmer, near Lewes, in October, 1770 A land-tortoise, which has been kept for thirty years in a little walled court belonging to the same house where I am now visiting, retires under ground about the middle of November, and comes forth again about the middle of April. When it first appears in the spring it discovers very little inclination towards food, but in the height of summer grows voracious; and then as the summer declines, its appetite declines; so that for the last six weeks in autumn it hardly eats at all. Milky plants, such as lettuces, dandelions, sow-thistles, are its favourite dish. In a neighbouring village one was kept, till by tradition it was supposed to be a hundred years old-an instance of vast longevity in such a poor reptile.' While I was writing this letter, a moist and warm afternoon, with the thermometer at 50°, brought forth troops of shell-snails; and, at the same juncture, the tortoise heaved up the mould and put out its head; and the next morning came forth, as it were raised from the dead; and walked about till four in the afternoon. This was a curious coincidence! a very amusing occurrence! to see such a similarity of feeling between the two peptourel, for so the Greeks call the shell-snail and the tortoise." 46 much too wise to walk into a well;" and has so much discernment as not to fall down an haha, but to stop and withdraw from the brink with the readiest precaution. Though he loves warm weather, he avoids the hot sun; because this thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poet says of solid armour, “scald with safety." He therefore spends the more sultry hours under the umbrella of a large cabbage leaf, or amidst the waving forests of an asparagus-bed. But as he avoids heat in the summer, so, in the decline of the year, he improves the faint autumnal beams, by getting within the reflection of a fruit-wall; and, though he never has read that planes inclining to the horizon receive a greater share of warmth, he inclines his shell by tilting it against the wall, to collect and admit every feeble ray. Pitiable seems the condition of this poor embarrassed reptile: to be cased in a suit of ponderous armour, which he cannot lay aside; to be imprisoned, as it were, within his own shell, must preclude, we should suppose, all activity and disposition for enterprise. Yet there is a season of the year (usually the beginning of June) when his exertions are remarkable. He then walks on tiptoe, and is stirring by five in the morning; and, traversing the garden, explores every wicket and interstice in the fences, through which he will escape, if possible; and often has eluded the care of the The gardener, and wandered to some distant field. motives that impel him to undertake these rambles seem to be of the amorous kind; his fancy then becomes intent on sexual attachments, which transport him beyond his usual gravity, and induce him to forget for a time his ordinary solemn deportment.' Again in April, 1772, White writes to the same correspondent:- -While I was in Sussex last autumn, my residence was at the village near Lewes, whence I had formerly the pleasure of writing to you. On the 1st of Again White reverts to the old family tortoise' in the November I remarked that the old tortoise formerly men- same letter: Because we call this creature an abject tioned began first to dig the ground in order to the form- reptile, we are too apt to undervalue his abilities_and ing its hybernaculum, which it had fixed on just beside a depreciate his powers of instinct. Yet he is, as Mr. Pope great tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with says of his lord, its fore-feet, and throws it up over its back with its hind; but the motion of its legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour-hand of a clock; and suitable to the composure of an animal said to be a whole month in performing one feat of copulation. Nothing can be more assiduous than this creature night and day in scooping the earth and forcing its great body into the cavity; but as the noons of that season proved unusually warm and sunny, it was continually interrupted, and called forth by the heat in the middle of the day; and though I continued there till the 13th of November, yet the work remained unfinished. Harsher weather and frosty mornings would have quickened its operations. No part of its behaviour ever struck me more than the extreme timidity it always expresses with regard to rain; and though it has a shell that would secure it against a loaded cart, yet does it discover as much solicitude about rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, shuffling away on the first sprinklings, and running its head up in a corner. If attended to, it becomes an excellent weather-glass; for as sure as it walks elate, and as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in the morning, so sure will it rain before night. It is totally a diurnal animal, and never pretends to stir after it becomes dark. The tortoise, like other reptiles, has an arbitrary stomach as well as lungs, and can refrain from eating as well as breathing for a great part of the year. When first awakened it eats nothing; nor again in the autumn before it retires through the height of the summer it feeds voraciously, devouring all the food that comes in its way. I was much taken with its sagacity in discerning those that do it kind offices; for as soon as the good old lady comes in sight who has waited on it for more than thirty years, it hobbles towards its benefactress with awkward alacrity, but remains inattentive to strangers. Thus not only the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib," but the most abject reptile and torpid of beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the feelings of gratitude.' In a postscript he adds, that in about three days after he left Sussex the tortoise retired into the ground under the hepaticas. 66 Mr. Darwin in his Journal describes the habits of Testudo Indica, or rather one of the species that have been confounded under that name, and, not improbably, the Testudo nigra of Quoy and Gaimard. He speaks of their numbers as being very great, as indeed they always seem to have been, for he quotes Dampier, who states that they are so numerous, that five or six hundred men might subsist on them for several months without any other sort of pro visions, and describes them as being so extraordinanly large and fat, that no pullet eats more pleasantly. The | day on which Mr. Darwin visited the little craters in the Galapagos Archipelago was glowing hot, and the scrambling over the rough surface, and through the intricate thickets, was very fatiguing. But,' says Mr. Darwin, I was well repaid by the Cyclopian scene. In my walk I met two large tortoises, each of which must have weighed at least two hundred pounds. One was eating a piece of cactus, and when I approached, it looked at me and then quietly walked away; the other gave a deep hiss and drew in his head. These huge reptiles, surrounded by the black lava, the leafless shrubs, and large cacti, appeared to my fancy like some antediluvian animals.' Mr. Darwin states his belief that these tortoises are found in all the islands of the Archipelago; certainly in the greater number, and thus continues his description:They frequent, in preference, the high damp parts, but likewise inhabit the lower and arid districts. Some individuals grow to an immense size. Mr. Lawson, an Englishman, who had, at the time of our visit, charge of the colony, told us that he had seen several so large that it required six or eight men to lift them from the ground, and that some had afforded as much as two hundred pounds of meat. The old males are the largest, the females rarely growing to so great a size. The male can readily be distinguished from the female by the greater length of its tail. The tortoises which live on those islands where there is no water, or in the lower and arid parts of the others, chiefly feed on the succulent cactus. Those which frequent the higher and damp regions eat the leaves of various trees, a kind of berry (called guayavita) which is acid and austere, and likewise a pale green filamentous lichen, that hangs in tresses from the boughs of the trees. The tortoise is very fond of water, drinking large quantities, and wallowing in the mud. The larger islands alone possess springs, and these are always situated towards the central parts, and at a considerable elevation. The tortoises, therefore, which frequent the lower districts when thirsty, are obliged to travel from a long distance. Hence, broad and well-beaten paths radiate off in every direction from the wells even down to the sea-coast; and the Spaniards, by following them up, first discovered the watering-places. When I landed at Chatham Island, I could not imagine what animal travelled so methodically along the well-chosen tracks. Near the springs it was a curious spectacle to behold many of these great monsters; one set eagerly travelling onwards with outstretched necks, and another set returning, after having drunk their fill. When the tortoise arrives at the spring, quite regardless of any spectator, it buries its head in the water above its eyes, and greedily swallows great mouthfuls, at the rate of about ten in a minute. The inhabitants say that each animal stays three or four days in the neighbourhood of the water, and then returns to the lower country; but they differed in their accounts respecting the frequency of these visits. The animal probably regulates them according to the nature of the food which it has consumed. It is however certain that tortoises can subsist even on those islands where there is no other water than what falls during a few rainy days in the year. I believe it is well ascertained that the bladder of the frog acts as a reservoir for the moisture necessary to its existence such seems to be the case with the tortoise. For some time after a visit to the springs, the urinary bladder of these animals is distended with fluid, which is said gradually to decrease in volume and to become less pure. The inhabitants, when walking in the lower district, and overcome with thirst, often take advantage of this circumstance, by killing a tortoise, and if the bladder is full, drinking its contents. In one I saw killed, the fluid was quite limpid, and had only a very slightly bitter taste. The inhabitants however always drink first the water in the pericardium, which is described as being best. The tortoises, when moving towards any definite point, travel by night and by day, and arrive at their journey's end much sooner than would be expected. The inhabitants, from observations on marked individuals, consider that they can move a distance of about eight miles in two or three days. One large tortoise which I watched, I found walked at the rate of sixty yards in ten minutes, that is, 360 in the hour, or four miles a day-allowing also a little time for it to eat on the road. During the breeding season, when the male and female are together, the male utters a hoarse roar or Mr. bellowing, which, it is said, can be heard at the distance of 'It was confidently asserted that the tortoises coming from different islands in the Archipelago were slightly dif ferent in form; and that in certain islands they attained a larger average size than in others. Mr. Lawson maintained that he could at once tell from which island any one was brought. Unfortunately, the specimens which came home in the Beagle were too small to institute any certain comparison. This tortoise, which goes by the name of Testudo Indicus, is at present found in many parts of the world. It is the opinion of Mr. Bell, and some others who have studied reptiles, that it is not improbable that they all originally came from this Archipelago. When it is known how long these islands have been frequented by the buccaniers, and that they constantly took away numbers of these animals alive, it seems very probable that they should have distributed them in different parts of the world. If this tortoise does not originally come from these islands, it is a remarkable anomaly; inasmuch as nearly all the other land inhabitants seem to have their birthplace here.' Geographical Distribution of the Species of Testudo.The last-quoted observation of Mr. Darwin is worthy of much attention. MM. Duméril and Bibron, who, to prevent the confusion hitherto arising from the application of the specific name Indica to more than one species, have eliminated that name altogether, give the following as the localities of the species of Testudo so far as they are known:-Asia, 5; Europe, 3; common to Europe and Africa, 1; Africa, 7; common to Africa and America, 1?; America, 6. Testudo sulcata will serve for an illustration of this genus: it is the species assigned to Africa and America with a?. M. d'Orbigny is stated to have himself collected the young of Testudo sulcata in Patagonia, where, according to him, the species is very common. MM. Duméril and Bibron declare that other specimens come without doubt from Africa. Genus Homopus, Dum. and Bibr. Characters.-Four toes only on each foot, and all unguiculate; carapace and sternum of a single piece. Species, Homopus areolatus (South Africa, Madagascar); Homopus signatus (South Africa). Genus Pyxis, Bell. Characters.-Feet each with five toes, the posterior ones with four nails only; carapace of a single piece; sternum moveable anteriorly. This genus is the only Land Box Tortoise; but an analogue (Sternotherus) occurs among the Marsh Tortoises in the division of Pleurodere Elodians. The anterior portion of the plastron of Pyxis, which is susceptible of motion, is of very small extent, for it only reaches, backward, to the space of the two first pairs of sternal plates, and consequently it is under the strongly indicated suture of the second with the third pair that the elastic ligament which performs the office of a hinge is seen. By means of this sort of moveable door or lid, the Pyxis can, by lowering it at will, protrude its head and its fore-feet, and by raising it, shut itself up in a sort of box, for the edges of this hinged operculum closely fit those of the carapace, which serve it as a door-case. The animal Pyxis arachnoides, seen from above. Pyxis arachnoides, seen from below then has nothing to fear, because its sternum protects behind, by its enlargement, the space by which the feet and the tail can be put forth and deeply drawn up. But one species, Pyxis arachnoides, is known. (Continent of India, and the islands of the Indian Archipelago.) Genus Kinixys, Bell. Characters.-Feet with five toes, the posterior ones with four nails only; carapace moveable behind; sternum of a single piece. MM. Duméril and Bibron observe that this is the most curious of the family Chersites. The Chelonians that compose it alone enjoy the faculty of moving the posterior part of their carapace in order to lower it and apply it against the plastron, so as completely to close the osseous box behind, as the Pyxides close theirs before when they elevate the moveable anterior portion of their plastron. But, as we have seen, the mobility of the anterior part of the sternum is in Pyxis due to the presence of an elastic ligament which performs the office of a hinge, whilst in Kinixys the carapace offers no really moveable articulation; the bones, the vertebræ, and ribs are the parts which bend. In consequence of this elasticity of the bones and their thinness, the carapace can be moved down to approximate the sternum. The sinuous line on which this flexion operates is indicated externally by a slight space, which is filled by a sort of fibro-cartilaginous tissue. This undulated line exists between the antepenultimate and the penultimate margino-lateral plate. The three known species have not, like all the other Chersians, the abdominal plates much more extensive than the other horny plates of the sternum, which, joined to the enlargement and the rounded contour of the plastron behind, approximates them in a certain degree to Cistudo, the first genus of the Elodians. Species.-Kinixys Homeana (Guadaloupe, Demerara); Kinixys erosa (Demerara); Kinixys Belliana (locality unknown: warm parts of America probably. Pausanias notices a Land Tortoise in the woods of Arcadia, whose shell was used to make lyres. II. Family Elodians-Marsh Tortoises. Geographical Distribution of the Family.-MM. Duméril and Bibron observe that of the four families which compose the order Chelonians, that of the Elodites is the most numerous in genera, and above all in species. For Marsh Tortoises have been found in the Old World and in the New, and even in Australasia, where hitherto not one species of Chersites has been detected. America produces more species of Elodians than all the rest of the world put together; for, of the seventy-four species which compose that family, forty-six are exclusively American, and the remaining twenty-nine are divided between Australasia and the Old World. The cause of this disproportion rests in the vast body of water, which, in the form of lakes, ponds, and marshes, covers a certain portion of the American continent, as well as in the great rivers and tributary streams which traverse it in all directions. Africa, where the territory differs so much from that of America in this respect as well as in so many others, possesses but six species, three of which have at present been only found in Madagascar, one at Bourbon, and another at Cape Verd; whilst this same Africa is rich in Land Tortoises. Of the twenty-nine Elodians which are strangers to America, two only, Platemys Macquaria and Chelodina Nova Hollandia, are natives of the last-mentioned country. Three belong to Europe, six to Africa, and the eighteen which remain out of the total number come from the East Indies or the Oriental Archipelago; that part of Asia, in short, which is most watered. But of all the Indian Elodians not one has the pelvis anchylosed to the plastron as well as to the carapace, and consequently immoveable; nor the neck retractile under one of the sides of the buckler; whilst the two New Holland species and the African Elodians are, on the contrary, in that condition; that is to say, Pleuroderes, which subfamily has its head-quarters in South America; for, out of twenty-three species of Elodians which there inhabit, five Cryptoderes only were known to MM. Duméril and Bibron, but not a single Pleurodere existing in North America: the six African species belong also to the Cryptoderes. Habits of the Elodians.-These differ very much from those of the other three great groups of Chelonians. The Marsh Tortoises have not the slowness of the Land Tortoises. They swim with facility, and on land make much quicker progress than the Chersians. They frequent small 1st Group.-European Emydes. Species. Emys Caspica; Emys Sigriz. 2nd Group.-American Emydes. Species. Emys punctularia, Emys marmorea, Emys pulchella, Emys geographica, Emys concentrica, Emys serrata, Emys Dorbigni, Emys irrigata, Emys decussata, Emys rubriventris, Emys rugosa, Emys Floridana, Emys ornata, Emys concinna, Emys reticulata, Emys guttata, Emys picta, Emys Bellii, and Emys Muhlenbergii. 3rd Group.-African Emys. Species.-Emys Spengleri. 4th Group.-Oriental Emydes. Species.-Emys Trijuga, Emys Reevesii, Emys Hamiltonii, Emys Thurjii, Emys tecta, Emys Bealei, Emys crasicollis, Emys spinosa, Emys ocellata, Emys trivittata, Emys Duvaucelli, and Emys lineata. Genus Tetraonyx, Lesson. Characters.-Five toes, one of them without a nail on all the feet; sternum solid, wide, furnished with six pairs of plates; twenty-five marginal scales. Species-Tetraonyx Lessonii (East Indies), and TeCraonyx Baska (East Indies). Genus Platysternon, Gray. Characters.-Head armed or shielded, and too large to enter under the carapace; apper jaw hooked; sternum wide, immoveable, fixed olidly to the carapace, with short al; three sterno-costal cales; five nails on the anterior feet; four only on the posterior feet; tail very long, scaly, without a crest. Species.-Platysternon megacephalum (China). P. C., No. 1561. chin; no nuchal plate; sternum immoveable; five claws | believed, but protected by horny cases, like those of all the on all the feet; tail moderate, not unguiculate. other Chelonians: only in Chelys they are extremely Species.-Pentonyx Capensis (Cape of Good Hope; delicate. Senegal; and Madagascar); Pentonyx Adansonii (Cape Verd). Genus Sternotherus, Bell. Characters.-Head depressed, furnished with great plates; jaws without dentilations; no nuchal plate; sternum wide, with very narrow lateral prolongations; free anterior portion of the plastron rounded, moveable: five claws on each foot. Species.-Sternotherus niger (Madagascar); Sternotharus nigricans (same locality); Sternotherus castaneus (same locality). Genus Platemys, Wagler, as reformed by MM. Duméril and Bibron, comprising part of Hydraspis of Gray, Platemys, Rhinemys and Phrynops of Wagler. Characters.-Head flattened, covered with a single delicate scale or with a great number of small irregular plates; jaws simple; two barbles under the chin; carapace very much depressed; sternum immoveable; five claws on the fore feet, four on the hind. Species.-Platemys Martinella (Brazil and Cayenne); Platemys Spixii (Brazil); Platemys radiolata (Brazil, where it lives in the marshes); Platemys gibba; Platemys Geoff reana (young sent from Buenos Ayres by M. d'Orbigny); Platemys Waglerii (Brazil); Platemys Nieuwiedii (Brazil); Platemys Gaudichaudii (Brazil); Platemys Hilarii (Brazil); Platemys Miliusii (Cayenne); Platemys rufipes (Brazil; banks of the River Solimoens); Platemys Schweiggerii (South America); Platemys Macquaria (Macquarie River, New Holland). Genus Chelodina, Fitzinger. Characters.-Head very long and very flat, covered with a delicate skin; muzzle short, gape wide, jaws feeble, without dentilations; no barbles to the chin; neck very much elongated; a nuchal plate, plastron immoveable, very wide, rounded in front and solidly fixed on the carapace; sternal alæ very short; intergular scale larger than each of the gulars; four claws on each foot; tail excessively short. Species.-Chelys Matamata (South America, Cayenne: in stagnant waters). A female lived some months at Paris, and laid three eggs, one of which was hatched and the young animal preserved in the Paris Museum. 3rd Family.-Potamians, or River-Tortoises. The species belonging to this family live constantly in the water, only coming out occasionally. Geographical Distribution of the Potamians.-MM. Duméril and Bibron state that no species of this family have been observed in European rivers. All those which have been described and whose country is known, come from the streams, rivers, or great fresh-water lakes of the warmer regions of the globe-from the Nile and the Niger in Africa; from the Euphrates and Ganges in Asia; and from the Mississippi and Ohio, or some of the rivers that flow into them, in America: but MM. Dumeril and Bibron add that we are far from knowing all the species, for they have been a long time confounded under one name (Trionyx). Habits, &c. of the Potamians.-It would seem that indi viduals of this family attain a large size. MM. Du méril and Bibron quote Pennant as mentioning some which weighed 70 lbs. ; one which he kept three months weighed 20 lbs., and its buckler was 20 inches in length, not reckoning the neck, which measured 134 inches. Thei mode of life and habits seem to have great similarity They swim with much ease both on the surface and a mid-water. The lower part of their body is generally pal white, rosy, or bluish; but their upper parts vary in thei tints, which are most frequently brown or grey, with irregularly marbled, dotted, or ocellated spots. Straigh or sinuous brown, black, or yellow lines are disposed sym metrically on the right and left, principally on the latera parts of the neck and on the limbs. During the nights and when they believe themselves to be secure from dan ger, the Potamians come to repose on the islets, the rocks the fallen trunks of trees upon the banks, or floating tim ber, whence they precipitate themselves into the water a the sight of man, or at the least alarming noise. They ar very voracious and agile, and pursue, as they swim, rep tiles, especially young crocodiles and fishes. Their fles being esteemed, they are angled for with a hook and lin baited with small fish or living animals, or with a dea bait, to which the angler gives motion and apparent life for they are said never to approach a dead or immoveabl prey. When they would seize their food or defend them selves, they dart out their head and long neck with th rapidity of an arrow. They bite sharp with their trenchan beak, and do not let go till they have taken the piec seized out; so that their bite is much dreaded, and th fishermen generally cut off their heads as soon as they hav caught them. The males appear to be fewer in number than the fe males, or, at least, they come less frequently to the bank of rivers, where the females resort to deposit their eggs hollows, which contain from fifty to sixty. The numbe varies according to the age of the females, which are le fruitful in proportion to their youth. The eggs are spher cal, their shell is solid, but membraneous or slightly cal careous. Genus Gymnopus, Dum. and Bibr. (Trionyx, Geoff Aspidonectes, Wagler). Characters.-Carapace with a ca tilaginous circumference, very large, floating behind, an said to feed not merely on the young of the crocodiles, but also to be gre destroyers of their eggs in the Nile and the Ganges. This must be taken to apply to living animals only, for the Potamians a |