For many years Dr. Albert Günther, of the British Museum, informs us, naturalists were much exercised in curiosity by the shells of tortoises of enormous size that were brought home in vessels coming from India. “From the greater convexity of their shell, these animals were known to be terrestrial and distinct from the marine turtles. From the accounts of voyagers of the sixteenth and seventeenth century it was found that these huge individuals of the Chelonian order existed in two widely separated regions, one being the Galapagos group in the Pacific, the others being certain islands in the Indian Ocean; yet, curiously enough, it, does not appear that the intervening lands have contained within the historic period similar creatures. Leguat (vide ante, p. 70) mentions the immense numbers of land tortoises he and his companions found in Rodriguez; and, indeed, when we consider that the helpless creatures lived for ages in perfect security from all enemies, and that nature had endowed them with a most extraordinary degree of longevity, so that the individuals of many generations lived simultaneously in their island home, we can well account for the multitudes found by the first comers.[…]”