82 GREEN TURTLE. 



Europeans before that period, that the different 

 kinds were in general confounded by navigators, 

 whose accounts relative to their character as a food 

 varied according to the species which they happened 

 to take for that purpose ; some insisting that the 

 Turtle was a coarse and unpalatable diet, while 

 others considered it as of the highest degree of 

 excellence. 



" Of the Sea Turtles," says Catesby, " the 

 most in request is the Greeu Turtle, which is 

 esteemed a most wholesome and delicious food. 

 It receives its name from the fat, which is of a 

 green colour. Sir Hans Sloane informs us, in his 

 History of Jamaica, that forty sloops are employed 

 by the inhabitants of Port Royal, in Jamaica, for 

 the catching them. The markets are there sup- 

 plied with Turtle as ours are with butcher's meat. 

 The Bahamians carry many of them to Carolina, 

 where they turn to good account ; not because 

 that plentiful country wants provisions, but they 

 are esteemed there as a rarity, and for the delicacy 

 of their flesh. They feed on a kind of grass, 

 growing at the bottom of the sea, commonly 

 called Turtle-grass. The inhabitants of the Bahama 

 islands, by often practice, are very expert at 

 catching Turtles, particularly the Green Turtle. 

 In April they go, in little boats, to Cuba and 



full was it of life, that the mouth opened and shut for an hour 

 after it was cut off." 



The above paragraphs are sufficient to shew that the introduc- 

 tion of Turtle into England was at that time of very recent date, 

 and that the dressing one at a tavern was an article of sufficient 

 importance to be noticed in a newspaper. 



