212 THALASSOCHELYS CARETTA. 



Mr. J. van Iperen who mentions these facts ') thinks it 

 improbable that these turtles were washed off the deck of 

 a ship , as he takes them to be too large to be transported. 



As far as I know of, the statements of these captures 

 in 1707 and 1777 are the only ones in which the presence 

 of a marine turtle on our coast was recorded. 



The question whether Chelonidae captured on the English, 

 Belgian or Dutch coasts must be regarded as accidental 

 visitors, or whether their appearance is due to the influence 

 of traders who transported them from their original habitat 

 to some market or some zoological garden , is a question 

 not so easily solved. Dr. de Man in Middelburg kindly 

 informs me, that in 1889 he got possession of two speci- 

 mens of a number of three Chelonidae, cast on shore in 

 our province of Zeeland , one of them still living when it 

 was captured. After many accurate informations Dr. de Man 

 discovered that, not long before that time, from a ship 

 that brought animals from America to the zoological gar- 

 den at Antwerp , three marine turtles , being nearly dead , 

 were thrown overboard. On the other hand, a specimen 

 of Pelamys sarda C. & V., captured in June 1878 near 

 Bergen op Zoom , and sent to the Leyden Museum by Mr. 

 C. J. Bottemanne ^), is an example of a species, which, 

 though living in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, acci- 

 dentally visits our Northern seas. 



Our specimen of Thalassochelys caretta L. measured 98 

 cm. by 77 cm. along and across its shield and had a weight 

 of 280 kilo's. It was a female and contained no less than 

 1150 eggs in a far advanced stage of development, the 

 largest of them weighing 17,5 gr., the smallest 11 gr., and 

 measuring respectively 3,5 cm. and 2,5 cm. It is mere than 

 probable that all these eggs would have been laid during 

 the very next period of egg-laying of our turtle, an inte- 

 resting fact with regard to the fertility of these animals. 



The skeleton of our specimen will be preserved in the 

 collections of the Leyden Museum. 



1) Verhandelingen van het Zeeuwsch Genootschap, T. VI, p. 620. 



2) Tijdschrift der Ned. Dierk. Vereeniging, Deel IV, 1879. Verslagen p. 8. 



J>fotes from tlie Leyden M^useum, Vol. X.V1, 



