THE TURTLES. 359 
fourteen men could stand at once; but these-are travellers’ tales. 
The nearest authentic approach to such exaggerations is related 
by Dampier, who saw a fisherman who had actually constructed 
a boat from a turtle’s shell large enough to hold his little son, 
who was some ten years old. As is the case with the cuttle-fish, 
many accounts of remarkably large turtles are in existence. In 
1752 a specimen was cast up near Dieppe, which measured eight 
feet. Two years later, not far from the Island of Ré, a similar- 
sized turtle was captured. When its head was cut off, it bled 
twelve pints of blood. There were 100 lbs. of the far-famed 
THE HAWK’S-BILL TURTLE. 
(Caretta imbricata.) 
green fat, and if we are to believe the reports, its liver was 
so enormous that it was sufficient for the repast of more than 
a hundred. 
The Hawk's-bill Turtle (Caretta imbricata) is a native of the 
Atlantic and Indian Oceans. It does not reach the large 
dimensions of the logger-headed, and its carapace is made, not in 
one piece, but of several plates, which overlie each other like the 
slates of a house. 
There are two other species which have their shells constructed 
on this principle. There is also a very rare species which inhabits 
the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, which has its carapace enclosed 
by a coriaceous skin, and down the back appear three long parallel 
ridges or blades. This turtle is the Sphargis coriacea. 
