AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES. 209 
by the non-imbricated dorsal plates and 2 nails to each foot, is 
apparently subject to great variation. It is said to reach 1600 
pounds in weight. Mr. Wm. J. Fox reports an example taken 
off Sea Isle City, in the pounds, early in July of 1905. It was 
said to have weighed about 400 pounds. I saw a carapace of 
this species at Stone Harbor on July 25th, 1906, which had washed 
ashore sometime previously. Mr. C. H. Townsend records a 
400 pound example taken in New York Bay at Belford, in Bull. 
N. Y. Zool. Soc. for October of 1906. Though I have no reports 
of these animals breeding within our limits a pair is said to 
remain copulating for as many as 17 days at a time. They are 
said to feed largely on conches, which are readily crushed by their 
powerful jaws. The large sea turtles which occasionally enter 
Delaware Bay are usually this species. They have been found 
about the pounds off Green Creek and Dias Creek in Cape May 
County. Some have been reported from there as quite large, 
sometimes of several hundred pounds weight. ‘They were sold 
as food by the fishermen. Off Cape May, Anglesea and Stone 
Harbor, fishermen have reported them from the open sea, some- 
times many miles off shore. They usually were floating along on 
the surface of the waves, either asleep or quietly resting. 
Chelonia caretta Holbrook, N. Am. Herp., Ed. 2, II, 1842, p. 
33, Pl. 4. 
Thalassochelys caretta E. Smith, Proc. Linn. Soc. N. Y., 
1898-99, No. II, p. 12. 
?Amyda mutica Abbott, Geol. N. J., 1868, p. 799. 
Genus CHELONTIA Latreille. 
The Green Turtles. 
Chelonia mydas (Linnzus). 
PLATES 55 (UPPER VIEW) AND 560 (LOWER VIEW). 
Green Turtle. Sea Turtle. 
Carapace feebly unicarinate in young, sometimes with slight 
indication of lateral keels, and arched or subtectiform in adult. 
Dorsal shields juxtaposed. Margin not or but indistinctly ser- 
14 MU 
