dies; in the Indian Ocean, the Isle of France, Madagascar, Rodriguez, and the Seychelles; in the Pacific, the Galapagos, and the Sandwich Isles, are noted resorts of Turtle.

The reason of some shores being more frequented by Turtles than others, is their suitability for breeding-places. To reach the destined spot for the deposition of the eggs, "the females have often to traverse the sea for more than fifty leagues, and the males accompany them to the sandy beaches of those desert islands selected for the places of nidification. Arrived at the end of their voyage, they timidly come forth from the sea after sunset; and, as it is necessary to leave the eggs above high-water mark, they have often to drag themselves to a considerable distance before they can hollow out their nests (about two feet in diameter) during the night, and there lay at one sitting to the number of one hundred eggs. This laying is repeated thrice,

at intervals of two or three weeks.

The eggs

vary in size, but are spherical, like tennis-balls; and when they are laid, their investing membrane is slightly flexible, although covered with a delicate calcareous layer. After slightly covering the nest with light sand, the parent returns to the sea, leaving the eggs to the fostering influence of a tropical sun. The eggs are said to be hatched from the fifteenth to the twenty-ninth day; and when the young Turtles come out, their shells are not yet formed, and they are white as if blanched. They instinctively make for the sea; but on their road, and as they pause before entering the water, the birds of prey that have been watching for the moment of their ap

pearance hasten to devour them; whilst those that have escaped their terrestrial persecutors by getting into the sea, have to encounter a host of voracious fishes and legions of ambushed crocodiles."*

GENUS CHELONE. (BRONGN.)

If we consider the Green Turtle, the Loggerhead, and the Hawksbill, as constituting but so

many species of a single genus, the characters of that genus will be the same as those already *Penny Cyclop. xxv. 76.

D

enumerated as marking the Family: but if, with some zoologists, we treat the differences between these animals as generic and not specific, restricting the term Chelone to the Green Turtle and its allies (C. mydas, maculosa, marmorata, &c.), we may give the following (from Duméril and Bibron) as the distinctive characteristics of this genus. The plates which compose the disk of the carapace are thirteen, not overlapping; the muzzle is short and rounded; the upper jaw has a slight notch in front, and small dentelations on the sides; the horny case of the lower jaw is formed of three pieces, and has its sides deeply dentelated; the first toe of each foot is furnished with a nail.

The Green Turtle (Chelone mydas, LINN.) is of an olive or greenish-brown hue above, and yellowish-white below. The carapace consists of twenty-five marginal plates, surrounding a disk of thirteen; the medial plates of the latter form almost perfect hexagons; the whole shell is somewhat heart-shaped, being pointed at the posterior extremity. Its length is sometimes above six feet, and its weight six or seven hundred pounds. Dampier mentions one that was captured in the Bay of Campeachy, which was nearly six feet wide, and four feet thick. A son of Captain Roche, a boy of ten years old, went in the shell as a boat, from the shore to his father's ship, lying about a quarter of a mile distant. Pliny speaks of the Chelonophagi, dwelling on the shores of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, who not only subsisted on Turtles, but converted their enormous shells into roofs for their huts, and boats for their little voyages; and the inhabitants

of some of the tropical islands at this day make these shells serve the same purposes, and others,

such as drinking-troughs for their cattle, and baths for their children.

The West Indian Isles, particularly the Bahamas, and those little sandy spots off the end of Cuba, known as the Caymanas, the Isle of Ascension, and most of the islands of the Pacific, are favourite resorts of the Green Turtle. Specimens have been occasionally caught on the shores of Europe, driven hither by stress of weather. "In the year 1752," says Mr. Bingley,

"one, six feet long and four feet broad, weighing betwixt eight and nine hundred pounds, was caught in the harbour of Dieppe after a storm. In 1754, a still larger one, upwards of eight feet long, was caught near Antioche, and was carried to the Abbey of Long-veau, near Vannes in Britany; and in the year 1810, I saw a small one which had been caught amongst the submarine rocks near Christchurch, Hants."*

This is the species the flesh of which is so highly esteemed, that it forms no unimportant article of commerce. Great numbers are imported every season for the supply of the London hotels and eating-houses, and these are chiefly brought from the West Indies and from Ascension Island. Ships proceeding on long voyages through the tropical seas always endeavour to recruit their supplies of fresh provisions, by calling at the islands where these animals are known to abound, and taking in a large number of living Turtle, as they are readily preserved in health for a long time with little trouble and without food.

The mode of taking Turtle is thus graphically described by Sir J. E. Alexander, as he witnessed it at Ascension, which island he calls the head-quarters of the finest Turtle in the world :—

"We walked down to the Turtle ponds, two large enclosures near the sea, which flowed in and out through a breakwater of large stones. A gallows was erected between the two ponds, where the Turtle are slaughtered for shipping, by suspending them by the hind flippers, and then

* Anim. Biog. iii. 147. This instance of its occurrence has probably been overlooked by Mr. Bell, who has not included the species in his beautiful "History of British Reptiles."