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This is caused by a large jet-black ant named "Leshonya". It is nearly an inch in length, and emits a pungent smell when alarmed, in the same manner as the skunk. The scent must be as volatile as ether, for, on irritating the insect with a stick six feet long, the odor is instantly perceptible. Occasionally we lighted upon land tortoises, which, with their unlaid eggs, make a very agreeable dish.
From the camel's track upon the sand, the Arab can determine whether it was heavily or lightly laden, or whether it was lame. When, therefore, we see upon surfaces which we know to have been laid down in a soft state, in a remote era of the world's history, clear impressions like those made by tortoises of our own time, it seems a legitimate inference, that these impressions were made by animals of the tortoise kind, and, consequently, such animals were among those which then existed, albeit no other relic of them may have been found.
The existing fauna shows us crocodiles, lizards, snakes, and tortoises; but no connecting link between the crocodile and lizard, nor between the lizard and snake, nor between the snake and the crocodile, nor between any two of these groups. They are separated by absolute breaks.
Tortoises occur in such numbers that their shell forms an article of commerce. Crustaceans and testaceans are abundant in number though few in species. A tiny oyster is found, not much larger than a thumb-nail, but very succulent. The marine fauna is the same as that of the neighboring Antilles, the sea and rivers teeming with edible fish, to which, however, but little attention is paid.
The two obelisks, supported by tortoises and surmounted by beautiful lilies, in the Piazza of S. Maria Novella were used as boundaries in the chariot races held here under Cosimo I, and in the collection of old Florentine prints on the top floor of Michelangelo's house you may see representations of these races.
She added fragments of the shells of tortoises, and the liver of stags, animals tenacious of life, and the head and beak of a crow, that outlives nine generations of men.
On the fourth evening Point Abacou bore five miles to the north and east of them. On the fifth they were at anchor in the Bay of Tortoises at the Island of La Vache, where Sharkey and his four men had been hunting. It was a well-wooded place, with the palms and underwood growing down to the thin crescent of silver sand which skirted the shore.
Near the rivers huge tortoises were to be found, and though to our eyes a tortoise seems a dull, slow thing, it is wonderful to think how clever they were, and how often they outwitted many of their livelier friends. There was one tortoise in particular that always managed to get the better of everybody, and many were the tales told in the forest of his great deeds.
Partly by way of freak, and partly by way of spying out so strange a country, a boat's crew was sent ashore, with orders to see all they could, and besides, bring back whatever tortoises they could conveniently transport. It was after sunset, when the adventurers returned.
None of them are referable to existing species. Among the last are crocodiles and tortoises of the genera Emys and Trionyx. Xiphodon gracile, or Anoplotherium gracile, Cuvier. The tribe of land quadrupeds most abundant in this formation is such as now inhabits alluvial plains and marshes, and the banks of rivers and lakes, a class most exposed to suffer by river inundations.
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