Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 61, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 March 1917 — Growth of Tortoises. [ARTICLE]

Growth of Tortoises.

It is popularly supposed that the growth of turtles and tortoises is very slow, and tlntt they live to be hundreds of years old. The impression has been ..-general-as-. regards, the gigantic tortoises of the Galapagos islands in particular; bus the staff of the New York Zoological park finds, on the contrary, that they grow rather rapidly. A speclmen received at the “Zoo” ten years ago has increased in weight from one hundred and forty to over three hundred pounds. Moreover, conditions In this climate and in the varying temperature of New York city are not nearly so conducive to rapid growth as the uniformly hot climate of the Galapagos Islands, which are almost under the equator.—Youth’s Companion.