HAWKSBILL TURTLE. 23 



Islanders are accustomed to dry the flesh to supply 

 them with food durino" their voyao-es. The meat is 

 cut into thin slices^ boiled in a melon shelly stuck 

 upon skewerSj and dried in the sun. Prepared in 

 this manner it will keep for several weeks^ but 

 requires a second cooking- before being- used^ on 

 account of its hardness and toug'hness. The fat 

 which rises to the surface during- the boilino- is 

 skimmed off and kept in joints of bamboo and 

 turtle's bladders^ being- much prized as food ; I 

 have even seen the natives drink it off in its hot 

 fluid state with as much g'usto as ever alderman 

 enjoyed his elaborately prepared turtle souj). 



The hawksbill turtle (Caretta wibricata), that 

 chiefly producing* the tortoise-shell of commerce^ 

 resorts to the shores in the neig'hbourhood of Cape 

 York later in the season than the g-reen species^ and 

 is comparatively scarce. It is only taken at nig'ht 

 when depositing- its eg-g's in the sand, as the sharp- 

 ness of the maro'in of its shell renders it dangerous 

 to attempt to turn it in the AAater,— indeed even the 

 g-reen turtle, with a comparatively rounded marg-in 

 to the carapace, occasionally, in strug-g-ling- to 

 escape, inflicts deep cuts on the inner side of the leg- 

 of its captor, of which I myself have seen an instance. 

 Of the tortoise-shell collected at Cape York and the 

 Prince of Wales Islands a small portion is con- 

 verted into fish-hooks, the rest is bartered either to 

 Europeans or to the Island blacks, who fashion it 

 into various ornaments. 



