CHAPTER XXII 

 TURTLES AND TURTLE-CATCHING 



Turtles and tortoises The terrapin or snapper Catching turtles with 

 fish The remora Shooting with tethered arrows Turtle-diving 

 Tortoise-shell A horrible method of obtaining it The hawk's- 

 bill Its shell Seining for turtles in South America The Gala- 

 pagos tortoise The green turtle Methods of taking him. 



A /THOUGH turtles and tortoises cannot be called 

 fish, some account of the catching of them must 

 find a place in a book on fisheries, unless the word 

 is taken in its narrowest sense. 



We have seen that when men go fishing it is either to 

 provide food for themselves and others, or else to procure 

 some substance which, though not eatable, is valuable as 

 an article of commerce. Sometimes the prey they seek 

 fulfils both purposes, as in the case of the sturgeon ; and 

 just as from that fish the fisherman gets food plus isin- 

 glass, so from the turtle he gets food plus tortoise-shell. 

 Of the tortoise proper we shall not have much to say, 

 except in the case of a larger variety ; for, in addition to 

 its generally being a land animal, its shell is seldom of 

 great value, and only the flesh of special kinds is eaten. 

 It was one of the " unclean " animals which Moses forbade 

 the Israelites to eat, and judging by the smaller species, 

 one can conceive that they were seldom tempted to break 



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