The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-09-22
THE OLDEST LIVING ANIMAL.

esting Facts Of Natural History.
Mr.. Walter Rothschild has procured
for this country and installed in the
Geological society's collection, the old
est living creature in the world. 1t is
one of the giant tortoises of Aldabra
sufficiently remarkable for its size, for
1t weighs quarter of a ton, but even
more interesting from the record of it's
age. This gives it known life of one
hundred and fifty years, with the I'M
known increment of it's age previous to
its transportation to the island of Maui
ritius. 1t is, we believe, the same tor
toise which was mentioned in the treaty
between Great Britain and France
when the island was ceded by the for
mer country in 1910, and has therefore
changed its status four times in CEN
fury and half as a national heirloom
In the Bishops garden at Peterbor-
ough one died in 1921 which was said to
have exceeded two hundred and twenty
years. The Lambeth tortoise, which
was introduced into the garden by
Archbishop Laud about the year 1925,
and died in 1853, owing to some neglect
of the gardner lived in it's last situa-
ton one hundred and twenty eight
years. In 1888 Sir Charles Colville,
governor of Mauritius, sent to the Zoo
ligical Gardens tortoise weighing two
hundred and eighty-five pounds. 1t
was four feet four inches long, and had
been in Nautilus for sixty-seven years.
Iha Il, +l,;r
tortoise was brought to that island
from the Seychelles in 1866 by the Chew
alier Marion du Fresno. At that time it
was full grown, so that It's real age was
probably much greater. In the Muse
UNI of Natural History at South Ken
s1ngton are the remains of an Aldabra
tortoise of the species now presented to
the Geological society by Mr. Walter
Rothschild which, though only known
to be eighty years old, weighed eight
hundred pounds, and was still growing
at the time of its death.
The structure of the tortoise contri-
butes a large share to their present.
nence in length of life. Their bodies
are spared the whole of that exhausting
process of collapse and expansion which
we call breathing. The cruel wear
and tear of this incessant motion, in
volvtng work of lungs. muscles, ribs
and air passages, unnoticed in health,
but one of the most distressing facts re-
vealed by illness, does not fall on the
happy tortoise His shell" backpiece
and breastplate alike, is as rigid as a
piece of concrete. He sucks in air by
making a vacuum with his tongue, and
swallows it like water the reservoir in
stead of stomach being his capacious
lungs. In addition to this enormous
saving of energy, the tortoise enjoys
two other structural advantages. He
has no teeth to break, decay, get out of
order, and ultimately starve him to
death, like those of an old horse or a
broken-toothed rabbit Instead he has
sharp horny edges to his mouth, which
do not break or get out of order, And
lastly, there is his impenetrable shell
A very curious fact in relation to the
giant tortoise is their isolation on small
remote, ocean-surrounded islands at
vast distances from land and from each
other. Aldabra for example, is a small
uninhabited island in the Indian Ocean,
northwest of Madagascar. Others are
found in ocean archipelagoes. like the
Seychelles, or recent volcanic islets, like
the Galapagos off the Pacific coast Of
South America. One rather attractive
theory for this isolation of the big tor
toises traces their plantation" on these
desolate islands to the old buccaneers.
1t has been contended that the Galapa-
COS Islands We're the original home of
the giant tortoises, and that the rovers,
who stocked them on board ship and
kept them alive for long periods, may
have left them al places of call, even in
remote oceans, during the long periods
in which buccaneering flourished.
Being built to last" the tortoise's
habits and character have to conform
in some sort to the limitations set by it's
form. 1t is not tempted to waste ener-
gy in useless motion. On the other
hand the disposition of the land tortoise
is eminently placid. This is by no
means an inseparable accompaniment
of slow and solidly built reptiles.
Toads, for example, have dreadful tenn
pers, which induce them to fight bat
ties on dusty roads and lose their lives
untimely Then there is a huge fat frog
in Argentina which can only hop an
inch at time, but which is so irritable
that he positively banks with fury and
almost bursts in his endeavorS to come
to close quarters and bite. But the tor
toise ''leads the life of tranquility on the
carpet of prudence and neither wears
OUT nor trusts out" Yet they are less
apathetic than might be supposed from
the habits of the small species kept in
English gardens. On the Galapagos Is
lands Darwin found that the oldest in
tortoises were really not only the odd
est Inhabitants" but the representative
creatures of the archipelago. This
view, that in island groups the "crea-
tive force may be traced in its origin,
gains much color from Mr.. Darwin's
discovery Of an astonishing number of
new species of birds and flowers on
these islands, lying remote under the
equator at a distance of eight hundred
miles from the mainland of South
America. But ii is also an argument in
favor of the view that the giant tor
toises of the Seychelles and Aldabra are
also instances of separate and peculiar
forms, generated on specific and limited
areas of earth, and developed and sur
viving under conditions of food and eli
mate not precisely like those in any 9TH
er place. But even so, they are Curl
Gus anomaly. In most islands the ten
dency of animal life is to fall below
rather than to rise above the normal
size. But there are instances to the