14 REPTILES AND BATRACHIANS 



out of which the ordinary tortoise has been evolved, it 

 being beHeved that the ossifications underlying the skin 

 have gradually become fused with the bones of the 

 skeleton to form the shell of tortoises and turtles 

 proper. Others believe the Sphargidcs to represent an 

 ultra-specialized type evolved out of the turtles. 



The Leathery Turtle has a world-wide distribution, 

 and is, in fact, a pelagic animal, straying to very distant 

 localities, occasionally visiting the coast of Great Britain. 

 In spite of its wide range it is by no means common. 

 Numbers have been seen, however, off the coast of Tenas- 

 serim, and at the entrance to the Klang Straits, where they 

 congregate in order to deposit their eggs, each female 

 depositing some three or four hundred. 



The strength of the creature may be fully realized by 

 the following interesting account, which has been given 

 by G. W. Gourley, of the capture of a specimen at Santa 

 Barbara in the year 1905. 



" The turtle was first seen swimming on the surface 

 about two miles off shore. I went after it, accompanied 

 by a boy, in an eighteen-foot sailing boat. On approaching 

 the turtle I dropped the tiller and got forward with the 

 gaff hook, swung over the side, and got the hook fast in 

 the leathery part of his neck. He immediately sounded, 

 and ran out the full length of the line — about two hundred 

 feet — towing the boat about half a mile further out to sea. 

 He then came to the surface and we pulled up close to 

 him again. When he caught sight of the boat he turned 

 and came towards us and threw his flippers over the 

 gunwale of the boat, nearly capsizing her. I climbed up 

 on the upper side, and shoved him off with an oar, the end 



