LAND TORTOISE, a terrestrial turtle of the family Testudinida', order Cryptodira (see CHELONIA), a family characterized primarily by the possession of a strong box-like shell, com pletely ossified when young and covered with horny shields, into which the whole body may be withdrawn and in some forms wholly en closed. The family also contains aquatic and amphibious forms (see MUD-TURTLES; TER RAPIN), but these need not now be considered. American representatives are found in the box turtles (properly so-called) of the genus Cis tudo, in which the plastron is connected with the carapace by ligaments and is divided into two movable lobes, the transverse hinge being so perfect that the box can be completely closed after head, legs and tail have been withdrawn. The carapace is high and arched. The common box-tortoise of the United States (C. carolina) has become completely terrestrial, and has undergone some interesting structural modifica tions in consequence, among others a loss of webbing between the toes. It reaches about six inches in length, is highly variable in the arrangement of the blackish and reddish tints of its coloration, and each dorsal shield is nicely sculptured in concentric rings, but these become worn nearly smooth in old age. They wander about the woods, walking with the shell well lifted from the ground, and searching for food most diligently in the evening and early morn ing and in moderate and moist weather. Their food consists chiefly of snails, slugs, earth worms, crayfish, grubs and the like, together with fungi and a little green stuff. In winter they hibernate, buried in soil or garden rubbish. They are fond of staying in one limited district, are easily tamed and exhibit some intelligence, but individuals differ much in these respects.
The typical land4tortoises, however, are those of the genus Testudo, in which the plastron has no hinged, folding part, and the feet are short and webless. The 40 or more species are scat tered throughout the warmer parts of the world, excepting in Australasia. The small, convex, highly sculptured tortoises of Europe and North Africa, so often kept as garden pets, are familiar representatives. They feed almost wholly upon green grass, leaves and vegetables. The captive made famous in Gilbert White's 'Natural History of Selborne) was one of these (T. ibera), and its shell is now preserved in the British National Museum. The gopher tor toise (q.v.) of Florida is a North American species; and a similar widely spread South American species (T. tabulata), which lives
mainly on forest fruits, is often two feet long.
Gigantic Land Certain ter restrial tortoises of very large size survived until the Historic Age, and in some cases still exist, on islands in the Indian and Pacific oceans. They are relics of a bygone period, when even larger ones prevailed. Fossil bones in Miocene and Pliocene strata of India, western North America and other parts of the world indicate tortoises of that period whose heads alone must In life have been nearly a foot in length, and beside those giants even the largest of the modern species so-called would look small. The presence of such turtles gave their name to the Galapagos (q.v.) group of islands off the coast of Ecuador, where each of the large islands of the archipelago supported a separate species, but all resembled one another in the relative small site of the head and great length of the neck. "The most peculiar looking are or were T. ephippium and T. abingdoni, the shell of which is extremely thin, with large lacunae in the osseous plates. The profile of the shell is saddle-shaped, with the horny shields partly concave and turned upward at the sides. The general color of these and other Galapagos tor toises is Toward the close of the 19th century all that remained of these tortoises were caught and distributed alive to various parks and zoological collections in North America and Europe, where they will be cared for and will probably continue their race. They eat grass and leaves of succulent plants,. as lettuce; their food in the Galapagos having been mainly cactus and a lichen (Usnea).
Other giant tortoises inhabited the islands of the Indian Ocean until within the historic period, and a few remain in captivity. In 1898 there was still living in England a specimen of T. sumetri, once existing in thousands on the Seychelles, whose history was known since 1766, when it was already of large size. Other spe cies inhabited Madagascar, where they became extinct, prehistorically, Bourbon, Mauritius and Rodriguez. They were utilized as food by the voyagers of the 17th and 18th centuries; were wastefully slaughtered by the European colon ists, and carried in shiploads from island to island, until at last none remain but a few captive specimens. Consult Gunther, 'Gigantic Land Tortoises) (1877) ; Gadow, 'Amphibia and (1901) ; Baur, American Natural ist (Vol. XXIII, December 1889).