io4 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



When the turtles break from their shells their first 

 impulse is to seek the water, therefore provision 

 should be made for this, taking care that the water 

 has a temperature of at least ioo°. When the ova 

 are shed they are soft, but afterwards become hard, 

 and the progress of formation within can be detected 

 by passing the hand over the eggs, which, at the end 

 of a month, furnish evidences of life. I am inclined 

 to think that, if a suitable incubator was supplied, 

 and the natural conditions of the shelly creatures 

 carefully provided for, they might be reared in this 



applaud and support any undertaking having for its 

 object the extensive culture of turtles in Western India 

 and other tropical parts. Their scarcity is due, in a 

 great measure, to the destruction of ova, and] their con- 

 version into food, the eggs being highly nutritious. 



This wholesale plunder ought to be vetoed by 

 legislative restrictions, more especially on account of 

 their feeble power of reproduction as compared with 

 their finny congeners. Turtles shed a very few ova 

 at one time during the breeding season, but they hatch 

 out with a greater amount of certainty than the eggs 



Fig. 44. — Catching Turtles (from an old print). 



country artificially. It would, I fear, be impossible 

 to domesticate these tropical denizens to our shores, 

 but they might be cultivated in the way described. 

 The propagation of the turtle is a most desirable 

 thing from a commercial point of view. It is idle to 

 expect them to enter largely into our list of dietaries, 

 but their numbers might be considerably strengthened 

 by proper and systematic measures being adopted 

 abroad. 



Turtle soup has become such a popular institution 

 that there would be hosts of individuals ready to 



of more prolific breeders. The growth of young 

 turtles is rapid. Immediately they emerge from the 

 ova they seem instinctively to dread the dangers 

 surrounding the first stage of their existence, when 

 their path is beset by hosts of predacious birds 

 which swoop down upon the tiny chelonians immedi- 

 ately they burst from their shell. Their flight to the 

 water, however, to avoid their aerial foes is a 

 remarkable instance of a powerful and discerning 

 instinct, being accomplished with a desperate rapidity 

 inspired by a keen sense of dread. 



