^^ LEAVES FROM THE 



mous, if we are to hold yElian, Pliny, Diodorus, and 

 others, worthy of belief. 



There he found Tortoises in the Indian sea so great, that one 

 only shel of them is sufficient for the roufe of a dwelling house. 

 And among the Islands principally in the Red Sea, they use 

 Tortoise shells for boats and wherries upon the water. 



And, again (book vi. c. 22), Pliny, writing of the in- 

 habitants of the Island of Taprobane, states that, 



They take also a great pleasure and delight in fishing, and espe - 

 cially in taking of tortoisses ; and so great they are found there, 

 that one of their shels will serve to cover an house : and so the 

 inhabitants do employ them instead of roufes. 



The largest skull of a turtle I ever saw is in the noble 

 museum of the E.oyal College of Surgeons of England. 

 It is the cranium of a Loggerhead turtle {Chelone caou- 

 anna), and is of the following portentous dimensions : — 



Ft. lu. Lin. 

 Length, in a straight line from the back margin -v 



of the mastoid to the fore end of the pre- I 13 6 



maxillary J 



Breadth in a straight line 11 fi 



Height, including lower jaw 9 



Circumference (horizontal) 3 4 



And now a few words on the natural history and cap- 

 ture of some of these Thalassians ; and first, of the deli- 

 cate sj)ecies, the greenish colour of whose fat gives it one 

 of its names, and is derived from the turtle-grass on which 

 it principally feeds — the green turtle, Tortue franche of 

 our pseudo-republican neighbours ; Testudo my das, 

 Linn. ; Chelone onydas of more modern zoologists. 



The Atlantic Ocean and the West Indian seas are en- 

 riched with this luscious esculent. 



Tm-tle (tortoises), writes Sir Hans Sloane, are of several sorts ; 

 those of the sea call'd green Turtle, from their fats being of that 

 colour, feed on conches or shell fish, are very good victuals, and 

 sustain a great many, especially of the poorer sort of the Island. 

 They are brought in sloops, as the season is for bi'eeding or feeding, 

 from the Cay manes, or south Cayes of Cuba, in which forty sloops. 



