410 N ATT HAL HISTORY. 



up the hole with sand, and now is the turtle-catcher's chance. He rushes 

 down from his hiding-place, and quickly turns the animal on its back, and 

 then proceeds to treat the next one in the same way. When once in this 

 position no escape is possible, for the shell is so broad that no pushing with 

 the feet, or contortions of the neck, will put the creature right side up. 

 The logger-head reaches a weight of nearly five hundred pounds. 



The green turtle, that delight of epicures and aldermen, is a much 

 larger species, specimens occurring which weigh eight hundred and fifty 

 pounds. It but rarely occurs north of Cape Hatteras, but south of there, 

 especially in the West Indies and on the northern coasts of South America, 

 it is very abundant. The turtle-catchers capture it in much the same way 

 as they do the logger-head. Besides this, it is often harpooned as it feeds 

 on the sea-weed along the shores. When captured it is not killed, but is 

 kept alive in pens until an opportunity presents itself to send it to market, 

 where, perchance, it may be served as turtle soup, or as likely be used day 

 after day as an advertisement, while the patrons of the restaurant devour 

 that wonderful compound made from the ' mock-turtle,' an animal no 

 naturalist has yet seen and studied in his native condition. 



Before our present days of sophistication, when the ways of dyeing 

 horn and the manufacture of celluloid were unknown, the hawk's-bill 

 turtle, or caret, was held in high esteem, for from its armor came all the 

 tortoise-shell of commerce. Says Holland's 'Pliny' (1601): "The first 

 man that invented the cutting of tortoise-shells into thin plates, therwith 

 to seele beds, tables, cupboards, and presses, was Carbillius Pollio, a man 

 verie ingenious and inventive of such toies, serving to roiot and superfluous 

 expense." The method of obtaining the plates varies in different localities. 

 In some, the animal is killed, and then the shell is boiled ; in others, the 

 plates are started by heat, and are then torn off, the animal being allowed 

 to escape again into the water. Under the influence of heat the plates can 

 be pressed into any desired shape, and they may even be welded together, 

 so that pieces of shell may be obtained far larger than any of the plates 

 occurring on the turtle. 



But few queerer-looking animals can be found than the soft-shelled tur- 

 tle of the United States. Look, for instance, at the peculiar face depicted 

 in our plate, with its oblique eyes, full cheeks, and pointed nose. The 

 species is a small one in comparison with those which have gone before; 

 but none of them equal it in ferocity. A shell twelve inches in length is 

 perhaps the average. The flesh is very palatable, and as the name indi- 

 cates, the shell is very soft. One of its most marked peculiarities is its 

 power of staying under water. Specimens have been watched steadily for 

 ten hours at a time, and during that period they evinced not the slightest 



