184 OUR REPTILES. 



and deposited in the Leverian Museum. The 

 largest of the Cornish specimens measured six feet 

 nine inches from the tip of the nose to the end of 

 the shell, and ten feet four inches from the extremi- 

 ties of the fore fins extended. A specimen, eight feet 

 long, was caught in a herring net, at Bridlington 

 Quay on the 15th October, 1871. 



Shaw mentions a specimen taken on the French 

 coast, in the month of August, 1729, about three 

 leagues from Kantz, not far from the mouth of the 

 Loire, and which measured seven feet one inch in 

 length, three feet seven inches in breadth, and two 

 feet in thickness. It is said to have uttered a 

 hideous noise when taken, so that it might be heard 

 to the distance of a quarter of a league ; its mouth 

 at the same time foaming with rage, and exhaling a 

 noisome vapour."* The bellowing noise made by 

 the members of this genus led to the adoption of 

 the generic name, which is derived from the Greek 

 o-<l>apaye(xi, " to make a noise in the throat." 



The turtle so essential to the comfort of an alder- 

 man is not this species. More than one kind is 

 regarded as very good eating, but the true Green 

 Turtle is Chelonia Mydas. It is said that the 

 Leathery Turtle is positively injurious. Pennant 

 narrates an instance in his " Appendix to British 



* Shaw's " General Zoology,'' vol. iv., part i., p. 78. 



