Habits of the Turtle. 263 



" The young, soon after being hatched, and when 

 yet scarcely larger than a dollar, scratch their way through 

 their sandy covering, and immediately betake themselves 

 to the water. The food of the green turtle consists chief 

 ly of marine plants, more especially the grass-wrack 

 (Zostera marina), which they cut near the roots, to pro 

 cure the most tender and succulent parts. Their feeding 

 grounds, as I have elsewhere said, are easily discovered 

 by floating masses of these plants on the flats or along 

 the shores to which they resort The hawk-billed species 

 feeds on seaweeds, crabs, and various kinds of shell-fish 

 and fishes ; the logger-head mostly on the fish of conch- 

 shells, of large size, which they are enabled, by means of 

 their powerful beak, to crush to pieces with apparently as 

 much ease as a man cracks a walnut. One which was 

 brought on board the Marion, and placed near the fluke of 

 one of her anchors, made a deep indentation in that ham- 

 mered piece of iron that quite surprised me. The trunk- 

 turtle feeds on mollusca, fish, Crustacea, sea-urchins, and 

 various marine plants. All the species move through the 

 water with surprising speed ; but the green and hawk- 

 billed in particular remind you by their celerity, and the 

 ease of their motions, of the progress of a bird in the air. 

 It is therefore no easy matter to strike one with a spear, 

 and yet this is often done by an accomplished turtler. 

 While at Key West and other islands on the coast, where 

 I made the observations here presented to you, I chanced 

 to have need to purchase some turtles to feed my friends 

 on board the Lady of the Green Mantle not my friends, 

 her gallant officers, or the brave tars who formed her 

 crew, for all of them had already been satiated with tur- 

 tle soup ; but my friends the herons, of which I had a 

 goodly number in coops, intending to carry them to John 

 Bachman of Charleston, and other persons for whom I 

 felt a sincere regard. So I went to a ' crawl,' accom- 



