CHELONIAMYDAS. 39 



Habits. The Chelonia mydas lives mostly in deep water, feeding on marine 

 plants, especially one called turtle-grass, (zostera marina;) this, according to 

 Audubon, it cuts near the roots, to procure the most tender and succulent part, 

 which alone it eats, while the rest of the plant floats to the surface and is there 

 collected in large fields, a sure indication that the feeding ground of the Green 

 Turtle is near. In confinement, however, they eat readidy enough purslain, 

 (portulacca oleracea,) and even grow fat on this nourishment. 



Green Turtles are very seldom seen to approach the land, unless at certain 

 seasons to lay their eggs; in the months of April and May, great numbers 

 seek for this purpose the sandy shores of desolate islands, or the uninhabited 

 banks of certain rivers, where they are least liable to interruption in their work 

 of reproduction. The Tortugas islands are a favourite haunt: these are four or 

 five uninhabited sand banks, which are only visited by turtlers and wreckers. 

 Between these islands are deep channels, so that the Turtles come at once to good 

 landing. They are not confined however to these islands, but are found abundantly 

 on other keys and inlets of the main. The female arrives by night, slowly and 

 cautiously she approaches the shore, and if undisturbed, crawls at once over the 

 sand above high water mark; here with her fins she digs a hole one or two feet 

 deep, in which she lays her eggs, between one and two hundred in number. 

 These she "arranges in the most careful manner, and then scoops the loose 

 sand back over the eggs, and so levels and smooths the surface, that few persons 

 on seeing the spot could imagine any thing had been done to it."* This 

 accomplished, she retreats speedily to the water, leaving the eggs to be hatched 

 by the heat of the sun, which is generally accomplished in about three weeks. 

 Two or three times in the season does the female return to nearly the same spot 

 and deposit nearly the same number of eggs, so that the whole amount annually 

 would be four or five hundred; and it is not a little singular that animals so low 

 in the scale of creation, should have the instinct to return to these haunts 

 from great distances, hundreds and even thousands of miles, in some instances 



* Audubon's Ornithological Biography, vol. vi., p. 373. 



