WAYS OF THE WILD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 307, 28 December 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

WAYS OF THE WILD.

TORTOISES AND TURTLES.

UNLIKE ANY OTHER REPTILES.

(By A. T. PYCROFT.)

No order of reptiles of the past or present is more sharply and unequivocally distinguished from all others than those reptiles known as tortoises and turtles. No order has had a more uniformly continuous and uneventful history. None now in existence has had a longer known history, and of none is the origin more obscure. If those members of the order which lived in the earliest times and are known to us as fossils lived at the present time they would attract no especial attention from the ordinary observer and but little from the naturalist. From time to time some have sought a change and have come to grief, but the main line has remained, with fewer improvements, fewer evolutional changes, than any other group of higher vertibrates. The turtles seem very early to have adapted themselves so well to their peculiar mode of life, to have entrenched themselves in their own province, that no othfcr creatures have been able to overcome them, or to drive them from it. They have no relationships with other reptiles, and it. is known that their origin is very ancient. They are the only order of reptiles of which not a single member is known to have teeth, or even vestiges of them. Until near the close of the Jurrasic period probably all turtles were amphibious animals of the marshes, spending much, perhaps the longer part, of the time in the water, good swimmers, and yet good crawlers. With the Cretaceous period, however, some of them became ambitious for new and untried modes of life. Various ones went down into the sea and became marine animals, reaching the zenith of their prosperity and the maximum of size before the close of the period, but continuing in diminished size and numbers to tlia Dresent time, if we may consider the leather-back turtle as really their descendant. Others in the Cretaceous period took to the rivers and ponds and; became almost as thoroughly aquatic in their thin shape and soft covering, and their lineal descendants still continue in the rivers of the northern hemisphere. Still others, in_ the age of mammals, took to the upland and competed with the mammals in the open places and prairies, reaching their maximum in Miocene-Pliocene times, when, for some unknown reason, the giants among them were driven from the mainland, to continue a precarious existence to the present time in some of the larger islands.

Turtles Conceal Themselves. Were there no turtles living we should look upon the fossil forms as among the strangest of all vertebrate animals, animals which had developed the strange habit of concealing them selves inside of their ribs, for that is literally what the turtles do. „ The box or shell of an ordinary turtle is com posed of the backbones and ribs, to which are soldered a shell of bony skin plates above; these plates'are the turtle or tortoise shell of commerce. Except the green turtle all members of tin' family are carnivorous. The green turtle is widely celebrated as the source of turtle soup, and may be distinguished by its short beak. There is a turtle soup factory on the West Coast ot Australia, which is supplied with giani green-back turtles by one man only, an Australian, who, scorning the usual method, that is, waiting until the femalf comes ashore to lay her eggs during the season, sails out to the adjacent islandin a lugger and upon sighting a green back follows it into the shallows in :i fast launch. He then dives overboard on to its back and rides it down, turn ing it under water on its back, man and turtle arriving at the surface in le>than a minute. With block and tackh the green-back is hauled aboard and delivered to the factory alive. Tin green turtle's carapice, or shell, has m commercial value, whereas the hawksbiil turtle, which is generally rejected a> food, enjoys thereby no respite from persecution, since it is largely hunted for the beautiful mottled horny shieldof its shell, which are the chief source of the tortoiseshell of commerce.

Giant Tortoise of Galapagos Islands. The tortoises found on the islands ol the Galapagos group are said to be the oldest living beings in the world, four and five hundred years being claimed foi the largest. Nothing is known of the ancestors of these great tortoises. Fossils closely resembling them have, however, been found in Cuba. The Gala pagos tortoise was first reported by the Spaniards, who discovered these islands. Later Dampier found tortoises very plentiful; other early voyagers remarked upon the huge size of these reptiles and their use as food. In 1813 Captain Porter remarks upon their large size, some weighing over 300 pounds, and states no animal can afford a more wholesome, luscious and delicate food "The finest green turtle is not to be compared to them in point of excellence, and after tasting the Galapagos tortoises every other animal food fell greatly in our estimation." But what seems the most extraordinary in this animal is the length of time that it can exist without food. They have been piled away amonu the casks in the hold of a ship, where they have been kept eighteen monthand when killed at the expiration ot that time were found to have suffered no diminution in fatness or excellence Charles Darwin, who when 26 year= old visited the Galapagos Islands in the Beagle, wrote an excellent account of the tortoises. Darwin found that they can travel over rough country at the rate of four miles a day. Darwin rode on the back of some big specimens and relates his experiences. He say?: "I frequently got on their backs and then gave them a few raps on the hinder part of their shells; they would rise up and walk away, but I found it very difficult to keep my balance. In order to secure the tortoise it is not sufficient to turn them, like turtles, for they are often able to get on their legs again." Mr. H. R. Beck has made many voyageto the Galapagos Islands collecting tortoises for museums and zoos, and in 1905 he wrote a very interesting account of his experiences. Beck states that it is only within the last few years that the home of these very large tortoises has been invaded by man, but the rapidity with which they are being killed, and the reason for their destruction, that is, the oil, which is shipped to South American ports, where it is used for cooking, leaves little hope that they will survive any longer than did the American bison after tho hide hunters began their- work of extermination.