Habits of the turtle, 16 



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" 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 moUusca, 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 j 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- 



