290 LEAVES PROM THE 



method of taking them is to pitch nets with veiy large meshes in the 

 bays where thej^ frequent, to feed upon the green and leaf'd moss 

 that grows at different depths in the bottom of the sea. When 

 taken entangled in these nets alive, they may be brought ashore and 

 kept some weeks alive without any sustenance ; for several days 

 after they are taken they sigh heavily. If they die in the net, they 

 stink in less than an hour's time ; but if killed, which is done by 

 cutting the throat (to give vent to the blood, which is always as cold 

 as water), the flesh will keep, not only uncorrupted, but, though 

 cut in pieces, the fore-quarter and callapee will continue to have a 

 strong, lively, muscular motion, for fourteen or even eighteen 

 hours : for if at that time it is pricked with a pin or fork, it will 

 move and contract itself visibly. Some part of the flesh cuts 

 reddish, resembling coarse beef; another ^^art is white as a chicken ; 

 the fat about the fins is somewhat yellowish ; but the far greater 

 part close to the upper and under shell is as green as a leek. They 

 are caught of different sizes ; the largest that hath been taken in 

 this island, v>ithin my remembrance, did not exceed four hundred 

 weight. . . . The flesh when baked or stewed is a most delicious 

 and noiu'ishing diet ; the young ones are often caught with a hook 

 and line ; the properest bait for this purpose is a sea-bladder ; and 

 they are likewise sometimes drawn ashore in nets. There is another 

 method of taking the larger sort, especially the females, by watching 

 their coming ashore in the night, upon the dry, sandy baj^s, in the 

 months of June, July, August, and September, in which laying 

 seasons, after they have crawled above high-water mark, they dig 

 with their fins (which are strong, nervous, and fleshy) a hole of about 

 two feet deep, in the loose sand, in which the female lays an 

 hundred or more eggs ; the outward tegument of these is rather 

 skinny than shelly ; its shape is round, of about an inch and a 

 quarter diameter : the inside of the egg is yellow, and to the 

 taste somewhat gritty. After these eggs are thus deposited in the 

 sand, the tortoise fills up the hole in so nice a manner, that it will 

 be scarce perceivable that the sand had been (hsturbed ; and the 

 eggs, by the heat of the sun, will, in nine weeks, be hatch'd, and 

 the young tortoises immediately crawl into the sea. 



The trunk turtle,* instead of being armed back and 

 breast in plate armour, is sheathed, as it were, with buff 

 stretched upon longitudinal rib-like processes, tuberculous 



* Sphargis coriacea. Testudo coriacea, Linn. ; Genus Coriudo 

 of Fleming ; Dermatochelys of De Blainville. 



