NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 289 



and smooth the skin in scorbutic and leprous habits, and 

 are said to cure even the most obstinate taints. 



The loggerhead from which his description Avas taken 

 was caught near the Western Islands, many leagues out 

 at sea. The back was covered with what he calls moss, 

 and with barnacles; a crab, which he figures as big as a 

 walnut, was found sticking in the wrinkles in the hinder 

 part of the body. The intestines, he adds, ' were full of 

 galateas and medusas, which, with a few branches of some 

 sea-weeds, made up all its nourishment; yet it was fat 

 and rich, but of a strong, rank, fishy taste. I eat some, 

 and it agreed pretty well with my stomach.' 



Let not the uninitiated reader fancy that Browne's 

 loggerhead had been feasting on nymphs and the 

 daughters of sea deities. The galateas* and medusas 

 were simple acalephans or jelly-fishes — as they are most 

 improperly called, for they have nothing of a true fish 

 about them — and the like. 



Hughesf is the last historian, to be here quoted, of 

 those beautiful islands that rise from out the glowing 

 sea, in all the prodigality of their tropical verdure, 



As green as emerakl, 

 once some of the brightest gems in the cro'vvm of Britain, 

 now dimmed and poverty-stricken by a so-called liberal 

 policy. 



Of the three different sorts that frequent or are bred near these 

 West Indian Islands, the ha\Yk's-bill alone affords what is commonly 

 call'd the tortoiseshell. The two other species (viz.), the green and 

 the yellow, a mulatto tortoise, J have each of them such shells 

 divided into as many regular laminae, but they are so very thin as not 

 to be fit for use. A tortoise hath four fins, with which it paddles 

 whilst in the water, not very different from the strokes of oars ; and 

 it is likewise by the help of these that the female glides along the 

 sand when she comes on shore to lay her eggs. The common 



* Galatea is, at present, the generic name of a crustacean, 

 t A Natural History of Barbados. 

 X The loggerhead, probably. 



O 



