THE GREAT MARINE VERTEBRATES 429 



of commerce, should be definitely taken up, and solved. The original 

 numbers of these forms in the natural state were always limited by the 

 helplessness of the young when first hatched. With a shell at first 

 very soft, great numbers are eaten by the shore birds of prey before 

 even reaching the comparative safety of the water after floundering 

 out of the sand where the eggs were laid. And once in the water the 

 young are still for a time the prey of sharks, so that of the hundred or 

 more that emerge from a single hatching a very few survive these early 

 dangers to reach adult size. This helplessness may, however, be readily 

 tided over by only the slightest protection, as the young grow very 

 rapidly, and the shell soon thickens. If all shores where the green 

 and hawksbill turtles lay their eggs were guarded by law enforced, and 

 the young safely piloted to the water and perhaps fed for a few times 

 only, it is evident, remembering the unvarying habit of the females 

 to return to the same shores to lay their eggs, that the great pasturing 

 and foraging grounds of our southern waters could be made to teem 

 with these turtles. Audubon gives a vivid account of the Florida 

 " turtlers " and the abundance of the turtles in his day ; though these 

 original numbers can doubtless be increased twentyfold. 



Yet it has come to pass that the United States Bureau of Fisheries 

 has not during several years of effort been able to secure any eggs of 

 the green turtle whatever on our shores. Nor will it be otherwise with 

 the less palatable loggerhead in a very few years, if as at present, even 

 the employees of the Coast Service, part of whose duties it should 

 certainly be to protect these animals, continue as now to be the chief 

 agents of their destruction. Even on the Dry Tortugas within shadow 

 of the Marine Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution the lighthouse 

 keeper whiles away the night searching up and down the long white 

 sandy beach for turtles; and save in a fog, every time a female turtle 

 flounders helplessly on to the beach to lay her eggs our friend of the 

 lighthouse signals with a warning horn to the " beach combers " and 

 " conch s " who rush up and despatch the egg-bearing female. These 

 " conchs," are indeed an evolving type of very hungry beachers who, 

 now that game is scarce, " close " on everything from a wrecked 

 schooner to a stranded turtle or whale. 



Protection of All the Great Marine Vertebrates is Feasible 



Certainly the " beacher," the " conch " and the " sea wolf " are as 

 interesting as the animals they destroy, and within certain very specific 

 limits may deserve perpetuation ! Meantime, for the sake of the 

 preservation of both, as well as the superior rights of those dwelling 

 inland — the greater number interested in the question of the eminent 

 domain of the sea — it is needed to quickly demonstrate the fact that 

 the world will not tolerate needless slaughter of its anciently evolved 



