See this solemn, slow-going Tortoise, shut up in his high-domed house of bones. It is the beautiful _Testudo pardalis_, well named from the plates being elegantly spotted and splashed with black on a pale-yellow ground, like the fur of the panther. This is a rather large individual, and the number of concentric lines on the plates of his armour,--or may I not rather say the _tiles_ wherewith his house is roofed?--is commensurately great. You see what I mean. Each of the angular plates has a small nuclear lamina, not in the centre of the area, for the development has been one-sided, but on the highest part. This was the plate in its earliest form, or at least the earliest of which any trace is left; for probably there were others yet earlier and smaller, which, on account of their thinness, have been rubbed away in the travels of the old wanderer. From this nucleus, the plate has been successively enlarged, to correspond with the general growth of the animal, by repeated additions of new laminae to the inferior surface; each new lamina being a little wider in every direction than that which preceded it, though not _equally_ on all the margins; and thus the plates assumed the form of a very low cone, as you see, always preserving the specific outline, and manifesting the stages of increase, by the projecting edges of the successive laminae, exactly as we saw lately in the scales of the fish. [Illustration: PLATES OF TORTOISE.] Whether these laminae are increased in an annual ratio, I am not sure, nor is it important. There are, I find, about forty-five concentric lines on one plate in this specimen, besides others which are evanescent. Hence it would be quite legitimate to infer that this Tortoise has passed through at least forty-five distinct periods of life, each of which has left a legible record of its existence. And yet, this moment, in which we look at it, is the very first moment of its life; the concentric layers are evidences of processes that never occurred, except prochronically. See yonder stately bird, nearly of the height of man, marching among the luxuriant musa-groves, and feeding on the succulent fruits. There is nothing very admirable in its coarse, black, hair-like plumage; but the rich hues of its naked neck, azure, purple, and scarlet, of the most vivid intensity, attract the gaze. The most remarkable feature in its physiognomy, is the singular, tall ridge of horn on its head, which, like the crested helmet of some mailed warrior, imparts an air of martial prowess to the bird, little in accordance with its peaceful habits. This protuberance is altogether a development of age. The skull, in the youth of the Cassowary, was scarcely more elevated than that of a chicken; but in the lapse of years, the bony ridge, encased in horn, has gradually elevated itself to the height which it now possesses. Here again we have a record of time, which is belied by the fact of the bird's recent creation.