14 CHELONIAD.E. 



tion are from the plate in the Prince of Musignano's " Fauna 

 Italica ;" and were taken from a very young individual. 



The colour of the adult is generally a full brown, with 

 numerous pale yellowish spots ; in the very fine specimen in 

 my collection, the under side of the extremities and throat are 

 white, with black irregular spots, rendering them, in fact, pied. 



This species, which is stated by Mr. Audubon to resort 

 to the Tortugas, or Turtle Islands of Florida, is later than 

 the other species in arriving thither for the purpose of depo- 

 siting its eggs. The average number laid by it, according to 

 the same authority, may be three hundred and fifty in two 

 sets. It is less cautious than the other species in choosing 

 the places for this important operation. " Its food consists 

 of mollusca, fish, Crustacea, sea-urchins, and various marine 

 plants.*" 



" The lyre," says Sir John Hawkins, " is the prototype 

 of the fidicinal or stringed species " of instruments, " and is 

 said to have been invented about the year of the world 2000 

 by Mercury, who, finding on the bank of the river Nile a 

 shell-fish of the Tortoise kind, which an inundation of the 

 river had left there, and observing that the flesh was already 

 consumed, he took up the back-shell, and, hollowing it, ap- 

 plied strings to it."* This application of the dorsal shell of 

 a Tortoise to the construction of a musical instrument by Mer- 

 cury is of very general reception amongst the classical writers, 

 and is even mentioned by Homer in his Hymn to Mercury. 

 To what species of Tortoise the individual belonged, which 

 was destined to be the means of so much enjoyment to man- 

 kind in all subsequent ages of the world, it would be useless 

 now to enquire : but it is not improbable that the seven 

 ridges on the back of the present species may have given rise 

 to the belief that it may have been the favoured animal ; 

 particularly as seven strings are by some of the ancient writ- 

 * Harmonia Manualis, II. p. 29. 



