NOTE-BOOK OE A NATURALIST. 285 



an opportunity of striking him, ^vllicll is by piercing the shell of 

 the turtle through with the iron peg, which slips out of the socket, 

 but is fastened by a string to the pole. If he is spent and tired 

 by being long pursued, he tamely submits when struck to be taken 

 into the boat or hauled ashore. There are men who by diving 

 will get on their backs, and by pressing down their hind part, and 

 raising the fore part of them by force, bring them to the top of 

 the water, while another slips a noose about their necks. 



There is nothing new under the sun. Hear Pliny 

 through the quaint pen of Philemon Holland : 



Many waies the fishermen have to catch them, but especially in 

 this manner : they use in the mornings, when the weather is calm 

 and still, to flote aloft upon the water, with their backs to be seen 

 all over ; and then they take such pleasure in breathing freely and 

 at libertie that they forget themselves altogether; insomuch as 

 their shell in this time is so hardened and baked with the sun, 

 that when they would they cannot dive and sinke under the water 

 again, but are forced against their wills to flote above, and by that 

 meanes are exposed as a prey unto the fishermen. Some say that 

 they go forth in the night to land for to feed, where with eating 

 greedily thev be wearie ; so that in the morning, when they are 

 returned again, they fall soon asleep above the water, and keepe 

 such a snorting and routing in their sleepe, that they bewray where 

 they be, and so are easily taken : and yet there must be three men 

 about every one of them; and when they have sworn unto the 

 tortoise, two of them tiu-n him upon his backe, the third casts a 

 cord or halter about him, as hee lyeth mth his belly upwai'd, and 

 then is he haled by many more together to the land. 



In the South Seas skilful divers get under the turtles, 

 and surprise them when so floating. 



The spirit-stirring salmon-hunt in Redgauntlet is 

 familiar to every reading Briton, and so ought to be 

 Mr. Darwin's most interesting Journal. There, in his 

 account of Keeling Island, will be found an animated 

 description of a turtle-chase. On the 6th April, 1836, 

 he accompanied Captain Fitz-Roy to an island at the 

 head of a lagoon. The exceedingly intricate channel 

 wound its way through fields of delicately-branched 

 corals. Several turtles were seen, and two boats were 

 then employed in catching them. The water was so 



