292 REPTILES OF BERMUDA. 



shoare side, and so couering them close leaue them to the hatching of 

 the Sunne, like the Manati at Saint Dominique, which made the Spanish 

 Friars (at their first arriuall) make some scruple to eate them on a 

 Friday, because in colour and taste the fiesh is like to morsells of Yeale. 

 Concerning the laying of their Egges, and hatching of their young Peter 

 Martyr writeth thus in his Decades of the Ocean: At such time as 

 the heate of Nature moueth them to generation, they come forth of the 

 Sea, and making a deepe pit in the sand, they lay three or foure hun- 

 dred Egges therein: when they haue thus emptied their bag of Con- 

 ception, they put as much of the same againe into the Pit as may satisfie 

 to couer their Egges, and so resorte againe vnto the Sea, nothing care- 

 full of their succession. At the day appointed of Nature to the procre- 

 ation of these creatures there creepeth out a multitude of Tortoyses, as 

 it were Pismyers out of an anthill, and this only by the heate of the 

 Sunne, without any helpe of their Parents : their Egges are as big as 

 Geese Egges, and themselues growne to perfection, bigger than great 

 round Targets." 



The date of depositing the eggs is somewhat earlier than that given 

 by the Florida Turtlers. Striking with an iron goad is a hint of what 

 is now known as pegging. Speaking of the pinnace they built, he says : 

 "Wee breamed her otherwise with Lime made of Wilkeshels and an 

 hard white stone which we burned in a kiln, slaked with fresh water, 

 and tempered with Tortoyses Oyle." In the commission of Governor 

 Moore, 1C12, he is requested to "be very carefull to make tryall of a 

 mixture made with oyle of tortoises and powder of shells or such like, 

 wch necessitye compeld our men to find ovt for there vse instead of 

 pitch and tarr for trimminge there shipps, and did them excellent serv- 

 ice for that purpose." One of this governor's companions, in a letter 

 supplementing Silvanus Jourdan's account, gives the name "Turkles," 

 a form which I find still to be in use in Eastern Massachusetts. "Tur- 

 kles thare bee of a mightie bignesse : one Turkic will serue or suffice 

 three or four score at a meale, especially if it be a shee Turkic, for she 

 will haue as many Egges as will suffice fiftie or three-score at a meale 5 

 this I can assure you, for they are very good and wholesome meate, 

 none of it bad, no, not so much as the very guts and maw of it, for 

 they are exceeding fat, and make as good tripes as your beastes bellies 

 in England. . . Also, we haue olives grow with vs, but no great 

 store: many other good excellent things we haue grow with vs, which 

 this short time will not permit me to write on so largely as I might: 



