REPTILES. 



Green Turtle. 



Land Tortoise. 



Hawksbill Turtle. 



We are now to speak of reptiles : a class of creatures endowed with a wonderful variety of structure, 

 and thus fitted for different localities and habits of life. The tortoise, the lizard, the snake, and the frog 

 are by most distinguished naturalists, all ranked among the reptilia, and yet the differences between them 

 are very wide. These animals, however, have several common characteristics. All are vertebrate, with 

 cold, red blood, of variable temperature, breathing by means of lungs, or bronchial tufts, or gills ; the skin 

 is covered by neither hairs nor feathers, but by horny shields, scales, spines, or granules ; else, as in the 

 else of the frogs, it is bare. The heart has two auricles and a ventricle. There is no proper external ear, 

 but an orifice either open or protected by a membrane. Sometimes they have'four limbs, sometimes two, 

 and at others none. Generally they are carnivorous, though occasionally frugiverous. The bite of some 

 is mortal. A high temperature is most congenial to them, and thus they are most numerous, most various, 

 and of largest bulk in the hottest regions. 



The Tortoises are covered with a bony frame-work, composed of two portions ; an upper, called the 

 buckler, or carapace, composed of the vertebrae of the back and loins, and also of the ribs, all expanded 

 and consolidated together; and a lower, named the plastron, or breastplate, composed of nine bony pieces. 

 Both these bony portions vary in shape and solidity in different species. The upper and under shields are 

 commonly united at their sides, leaving before and behind an opening for the protrusion of the head, the 

 limbs and the tail, and these can, for the most part, be drawn in and completely shut up. The lungs of the 

 Tortoise are large, but owing to its hard, bony inclosure it does not respire like other animals, but " gulps 

 down" air by a process peculiar to itself. 



The Tortoise has no teeth, but its jaws are cased in sharp-edged, horny coverings, with which it crops 

 and minces the vegetables on which it chiefly feeds. Its tongue is thick, and abundantly furnished with 

 nerves, so that it enjoys highly the sense of taste. From the conformation of its smelling and hearing 

 organs, these senses are probably feeble, but the eye is large and well developed. 



The limbs of the various species differ greatly, from a large, club foot, with only the strong claws 

 apparent, to feet divided and webbed, and so on, to large, undivided paddles, which are to the ocean what 

 wings are to the air. Their movements on land, are slow and awkward, and yet they readily excavate 

 pits in the ground big enough to burrow in. 



These animals endure long fasting with impunity, and are extremely tenacious of life, even when 

 severely wounded. In a natural state they are wondrously long lived, instances being recorded of their 

 reaching two hundred and twenty years. Their eggs are mostly round, and are buried under a thin 

 covering of soil, and left to be hatched by the sun's heat. 



One of the species, the Green Turtle, has been known to reach the weight of five and six hundred 

 pounds. A species called the Hawksbill is well known, and much sought after for the scales of the cara- 

 pace, which are the tortoise shell of commerce ; and which are cruelly separated from the living animal 

 by presenting the convex surface to a glowing fire, as is done at Easter Island, and other places where the 

 fishery of this animal is carried on. It appears that after this barbarous operation the poor creatures are 

 set at liberty in order, as the shell grows again, that another crop of tortoise shell may, in a future year, 

 be taken ; the second shell, however, is very thin and inferior. The eggs of this Turtle are excellent, but 

 the flesh is bad. The Hawksbill Turtle is not only an inhabitant of the warmer latitudes of the American 

 seas, it frequents the Islands of Bourbon, the Seychelles, Amboyna, New Guinea, and the Indian Seas. It 

 attains to a large size, but seldom equals the Green Turtle. 

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