322 THE GREAT BARRIER REEF. 



A valuable tortoise-shell producing turtle is also plentiful in the Barrier district, but as yet the 

 trade in tortoise-shell from this region is not sufficient to constitute an independent industry, the 

 greater portion of that which is collected being obtained in a desultory manner by those engaged in 

 curing Beche-de-mer. The average annual value of this material exported from Queensland within 

 the past ten years has slightly exceeded £^oo. A higher figure, and one that indicates that the 

 trade in tortoise-shell is increasing, was, however, reached in the year 1889, when it amounted 

 to as much as ^1,705. The prices obtained for Queensland tortoise-shell vary considerably, 

 according to quality. The best and most valuable description is obtained from the true tortoise- 

 shell or hawksbill turtle, Chelone imbricata, which, if of superior texture, may realise from £\ to 

 £\ 5s. per pound. The thin and inferior descriptions of tortoise-shell produced by the edible 

 turtle, Chelone mydas, will not obtain a higher price than 4s. or 5s. per pound. There is every 

 reason for believing that the tortoise-shell turtle might, in common with the green species, be 

 made a subject of cultivation. 



Among the more intelligent of the Beche-de-mer fishermen, as many as five distinct Barrier 

 Reef varieties of turtle are recognised: these are the loggerhead, Thalassochelys caretta, the ordi- 

 nary green edible species, the tortoise-shell turtle, and a red- and a yellow-backed description. 

 This last-named, or yellow-backed, form would appear to be a melanotic variety only of the 

 hawksbill ; the shell is yellow throughout, and is so highly prized that as much as ^20 per 

 pound has been offered for it to the fishermen. The red-backed turtle would seem, in a similar 

 manner, to be a variety only of the ordinary edible species. All these Barrier Reef turtles, 

 with the exception of the loggerhead, are esteemed for food. The circumstance that the logger- 

 head is essentially a fish-eating species, while the other varieties feed chiefly on seaweeds, will 

 account for its rank qualities. 



While concerned with turtles, a suitable opportunity is presented of redeeming the 

 promise made on page loi of introducing the reader to the Great Barrier sea-serpent. The 

 monster, in this instance, must be relegated, if anywhere, to the order of the Chelonia, or Shield- 

 reptiles, which includes the turtles, tortoises, and terrapins ; but it possesses, as in all sea-serpents 

 hitherto described, unique individual peculiarities. Hopeful anticipations were entertained by the 

 author that Dr. A. C. Oudeman's long promised and recently published treatise on the great sea- 

 serpent would have yielded some corroborative evidence respecting the sea-serpentine chelonian. 

 The only instance, however, in which the presentment of a gigantic turtle is identified with the 

 so-called sea-serpent, is that of the animal reported by the officers of the Royal yacht Osborne as 

 having been seen by them on June 2nd, 1877, off the coast of Scilly. The figure reproduced on 

 page 349 of I^r. Oudeman's work, appeared in The Graphic of June 30th of that year. This 

 turtle-like monster, having a back about fifteen feet broad, flippers of the same length, and a 

 head about six feet thick. Dr. Oudeman claims to belong to the pinnipedia, or the seal and 

 sea-lion tribe. His only other reference to the turtle group, p. 423, is to dismiss it, in 



