216 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



prevailing at the South and in the British "West Indies, got into Eng- 

 lish books of voyages and travels in those parts. The word, however, 

 with the meaning in question, did not appear in any dictionary till 

 1671, when Skinner's ' Etymologicon ' gave this account of it : 'NautiK 

 etiam testudines marinas turtles vocant.'* 



" About the middle of the last century the marine animal itself began 

 to be imported into London, as a luxury for the table, under its West- 

 Indian name, which then took a place in the language of the market 

 and the kitchen ; turtle-feasts were instituted ; f and turtler came to be 

 heard, as well as whaler. Polite literature sported with it in light 

 essays and satirical verses on the manners of the town,! but ignored 

 it in any other relation. Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, published in 



mon-school books. TurUe would seem to be nearly as old a name as turtle ; and, 

 if it had prevailed in print to the exclusion of the latter, it would have had less 

 ambiguity. 



* It must not be supposed, however, that all sailors at all times employed this 

 word. Dampier (1679), in the narrative of his cruising in the "West-India seas 

 with a fleet of privateers under " Captain "Wright, Captain Yanky," and others, 

 and of his subsequent voyage round the world, which contributed so much to the 

 natural history of those days, uses the two words indiscriminately, " green tor- 

 toise," " green turtle," and, in the same breath, " turtle-doves and sea-turtle." Defoe 

 (1719), versed in such narratives (which he counterfeited to the life), in order to be 

 understood by everybody, makes Eobinson Crusoe begin by finding " a large tortoise 

 or turtle. This was the first I had seen." All afterwards were turtles. Our Mar- 

 blehead Eobinson Crusoe, Philip Ashton, whose interesting narrative (1722) has 

 just been found and published by Colonel Swett, had, at the island of Roatan, "no 

 knife or instrument of iron by which to cut up a tortoise, when he had turned it." 

 Even resident natives of the "West Indies, at this day, do not hesitate to write 

 thus : " By far the greater part of the sea and land tortoises exposed for sale in 

 our markets come from the Main." — Verteuil's " Trinidad," &c., 1858 (dedicated 

 to his countrymen). 



t These novel feasts attracted so much notice in 1753 - 54, that they were repeat- 

 edly chronicled, among grave matters, in the " Historical Department " of the 

 Gentleman's Magazine; e.g. " Saturday, July 13 [1754]. The Right Hon. Lord 

 Anson made a present to the gentlemen of "White's Chocolate House of a turtle, 

 which weighed three hundred pounds weight, and whicii laid five eggs since in their 

 possession." 



I Lord Lyttleton, in his "Dialogue's of the Dead" (1751), makes Apicius (who 

 had just got intelligence from a freshly-arrived London alderman) tantalize, with 

 an account of the new-found luxury, another London epicure who had come below 

 in 1738, several years too soon. In 1753 appeared a Number of " The "World,'-" 

 containing a humorous description of a turtle-feast at the house of a returned 



