62 
dust would be found of service in polishing metals and 
marble, and as it is an abundant product of the island, it 
might be turned to good account. 
* The crew of the Spey, as well as the party on the island, 
are fed during a certain season of the year on turtle. These 
reptiles come ashore in the night-time to deposite their eggs. 
A party is sent in quest of them, who turn as many as they 
want upon their backs, and leave them there without the 
power of moving, until a boat is sent round to fetch them 
home. The females alone are thus caught, the male turtles 
never coming ashore. They are of the species called the 
Loggerhead, and weigh from 300 to 600 pounds. The epi- 
dermis of this kind is as thin as parchment, and quite 
unsuitable for any of the purposes of real tortoise-shell; but 
I am inclined to think it might be converted to ornamental 
purposes of various kinds. If smoothed and underlaid with 
gold or silver foil, it would make elegant book-covers. It 
might also serve all the purposes for which shagreen is used. 
- * The officers of the Spey made us a present of a couple of 
turtles for sea stock, which weighed about 400 pounds. We 
killed one of them a few days after we left the island. It 
made excellent soup, but its flesh, as might be expected, was 
insufferably coarse. On opening it there were found about 
200 perfect eggs, and twice as many half formed, having 
nothing but the yolk. ‘These eggs do not ripen, it would 
appear, in regular succession, nor all at once, but in lots con- 
sisting of a certain number, such, perhaps, as the animal can 
lay in the course of a night, after which it returns to its own 
element and enjoys a respite for some time, till the next divi- 
sion comes to maturity. The eggs of the turtle are about the 
ordinary size of a hen's egg, but perfectly spherical. The 
external covering is a white pellicle encrusted with a calca- 
reous matter that rubs off when the egg is roughly handled. 
The white never coagulates on boiling, but the yolk becomes 
hard, and has precisely the taste of pease-pudding. Each egg 
has a large dimple on it, probably to leave room for the 
expansion of its contents while exposed i in the hot "x TE | 
the evolution of the young. 
