For Mauritius see "Voyage par un Officier" etc. Part 1
page 170. There are no frogs in the Canary Islands, Webb et
Berthelot "Hist. Nat. des Iles Canaries." I saw none at St. Jago in
the Cape de Verds. There are none at St. Helena.) As far as I can
ascertain from various works, this seems to hold good throughout
the Pacific, and even in the large islands of the Sandwich
archipelago. Mauritius offers an apparent exception, where I saw
the Rana Mascariensis in abundance: this frog is said now to
inhabit the Seychelles, Madagascar, and Bourbon; but on the other
hand, Du Bois, in his voyage in 1669, states that there were no
reptiles in Bourbon except tortoises; and the Officier du Roi
asserts that before 1768 it had been attempted, without success, to
introduce frogs into Mauritius--I presume for the purpose of
eating: hence it may be well doubted whether this frog is an
aboriginal of these islands. The absence of the frog family in the
oceanic islands is the more remarkable, when contrasted with the
case of lizards, which swarm on most of the smallest islands. May
this difference not be caused by the greater facility with which
the eggs of lizards, protected by calcareous shells, might be
transported through salt-water, than could the slimy spawn of
frogs?
I will first describe the habits of the tortoise (Testudo nigra,
formerly called Indica), which has been so frequently alluded to.
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