292 LEAVES FROM THE 



fatal net, or oppressed with woimds. The carapace and 

 plastron, with its longitudinal, string-like lines or ribs, 

 may have suggested the lyrical name accorded to the 

 species. We have said enough to put those hungry 

 gentlemen on their guard who may feel disposed to con- 

 sign it to the tureen. It attains a great size. Indivi- 

 duals weighing 700 and 800 pounds have been taken 

 on our coasts. These were stragglers; but instances are 

 on record of their having been captured, temptingly fat, 

 of the weight of 1500 or 1600 pounds. Nor do some of 

 the species of chelone stop at that point with which the 

 lovers of turtle are familiar. Some of that genus have 

 been taken with a carapace measuring nearly seven feet 

 in length, and more than fifteen feet in circumference ; 

 and have turned the scale against from 800 to 900 

 pounds. 



When first hatched, the shells of the young turtles are 

 said to be comparatively imperfect, and the little animals 

 have a blanched appearance. Their welcome ujjon 

 emerging into the light, as they swarm out of the sand 

 like ants from an ant-hill, is but a rough one ; and few 

 young animals are surrounded with more dangers. They 

 instinctively make for the sea, but their numbers are 

 greatly reduced by predatory birds and other enemies 

 before it is reached; and there and then the hungry 

 fishes wait for them open-mouthed. Still, as in the case 

 of all other races, the issue of the battle of life is in their 

 favour, till the species dies out, like the extinct colosso- 

 chelys (Falconer), whose weight must have been some- 

 thing enormous; or like that chimera-like form of the 

 ancient world, in which Nature seems freakishly to have 

 united the sauro-chelysian, or half-lizard, half-tortoise 

 shape, with the canines of a walrus.* 



* Dicynodon. Discovered by A. G. Bain, Esq., in sandstone 

 rocks at the sontli eastern extremity of Africa : named and described 

 by Professor Owen in Trans. Geol. Soc. vol. vii. part 2. 



