at tlieir extremities. Of the aquatic fpecies fomc inhabit the fea, and others freih waters: tlie
T e f t u c b Mydas and Caretta are in freqiient life as a food, in the We f t Indies, and are from
thence imported into Europe as a kixnrious article of diet. The ufe of the niells, principally
thofe of the marine fpecies, and efpecially of the Teftudo imbricata of Linnaeus, is too well
known to be particularly mentioned: they are ufed in innumerable works of art. All the animals
of this genus are oviparous; and the aquatic fpecies depofit their eggs in the fand; from
whence the young, as foon as hatched, betake themfelves to the waters. Tortoifes are remarkably
tenacious of the principle of life, and the feveral parts will continue to move long after
reparation from each other, and a Tortoife has been known to live many days though deprived
of its head: they feed principally on vegetable fubftances. The age to which land tortoifes
fometimes arrive is veiy great. A Tortoife was kept in the laft century in the garden of the
Archbiihop of Canterbury at Lambeth, which lived to be upwards of one hundred and twenty
years old; having been introduced into the garden in the year 1633, in the time of Archbiihop
Laud, and continuing there till the year 1753, when it periflied, not through any infirmities of
advanced life, but by the accidental negligence of the gardener: and Mr. Whi te, in his Hiftory
of Selburne, gives an account of a Tortoife in a neighbouring village, which was by tradition
fuppofed to be one hundred years old. The anatomy of the Tortoife is very curious: the lungs
in particular afford a curious fpeaacle, and confift of very large air-cells, interfpcrfed with
blood-veflels, and convey a very clear idea of the ftruiElure of thofe organs in amphibious animals.
The particular fpecies of Tortoife figured on this Plate is a land fpecies, and has been
named fulcata, or forrowed, from the depth of the ftrise or marks of divifion on the lamella;
of its ihell. It is an inhabitant of the W e f t Indies. Fig. B reprefents a view of the lower
furface. Fig. C fliews the head of its natural fize.
Jl