692 A. E. Verrill — The Bermuda Islands. 



"In regard that much waste and abuse hath been offered and yel 

 is by sundrye lewd and imp'vident p'sons inhabitinge wthin these 

 Islands, Avho in there continuall goinges out to sea for fish doe upon 

 all occasions, and at all tymes as they can raeete with them, snatch 

 & catch up indifferentlye all kinds of Tortoyses, both youge & old, 

 little and greate, and soe kill, carrye awaye and devoure them to the 

 much decay of the breed of so excellent a fishe, the daylye skarringe 

 of them from of our shores and the danger of an utter distroyinge 

 and losse of them. It is therefore enacted by the Authoritie of 

 this present Assembly That from hence forward noe manner of pson 

 or psons of what degree or condition soever he be, inhabitinge or 

 remayning at any time within these Islands, shall p'esume to kill or 

 cause to be killed in any Bay, Sound, Harbor or any other place out 

 to Sea : being within five leagues round about of those Islands, any 

 young Tortoyses that are or shall not be found to be Eighteen inches 

 in the Breadth or Dyameter, and that upon the penaltye for everye 

 such offence of the fforfeyture of fifteen pounds of Tobacco, whereof 

 the one half is to be bestowed in publique uses the other upon the 

 Informer." 



b. — The Green Turtle (Chelonia mi/das (L.) Sch.= V. viridis T. and 



S.). See p. 448.* 



Figure 47. 



At the present time this is much more common than either of the 

 other species and is still taken in small numbers, for the market, by 

 the turtle fishers of St. David's Island, as described in a former 

 chapter (p. 448). Those taken in recent years are nearly all young 

 or half -grown specimens, seldom weighing more than 70 or 80 

 pounds, though sometimes 150 pounds or more. They have not 

 been known to breed on the Bermuda shores for more than two 

 hundred years, so far as I can learn. Therefore all that are captured 

 here come northward from the West Indies in the Gulf Stream. 



In the West Indies they are believed to reach the weight of 15 to 

 20 pounds the first year; those weighing 80 to 100 pounds are 

 thought to be three or four years old (Garman). 



In the West Indies green turtles have been taken weighing *•"><> 

 pounds and even 1000 pounds, but such giants are now very rare, 



* Good accounts of the sea-turtles are given by Kolbrook, North American 

 Herpetology, ii, 1849 : L. Agassiz, Contributions to the Nat. Hist, of the United 

 States, ii, 1857 ; S. Garman, Bull. U. S. Nat. Museum, No. 25, pp. 287-303, 

 1884 (with detailed synonymy); F. W. True, The Fisheries and Fishery Indus- 

 tries of the United States, sec. ii, p. 147, 1884. 



