TURTLES. 85 



dropped one by one, and disposed in regular layers, to the number of one hundred 

 and fifty, or sometimes nearly two hundred. The whole time spent in this part 

 of the operation may be about twenty minutes. She now scrapes the loose sand 

 back over the eggs, and so levels and smooths the surface that few persons on seeing 

 the spot could imagine that anything had been done to it. This accomplished to 

 her mind, she retreats to the water with all possible despatch, leaving the hatching 

 of the eggs to the heat of the sand." During a season each female will lay three 

 clutches of eggs, at intervals of from a fortnight to three weeks, usually from one 

 hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty in number. No sooner are the 

 young turtles hatched, than hosts fall victims to land-crabs, frigate-, and other sea- 

 birds, while, when they reach the sea, they are attacked by swarms of predaceous 

 fishes. To escape the latter, the young reptiles allow themselves to be carried out 

 by currents into deep water, where they are less readily seized. During the 

 breeding-season the males fight desperately with one another, to the great joy of 

 the sharks, by whom the disabled ones are seized. 



When first laid, the round eggs of turtles are never quite full, but before 

 hatching become fully distended. In describing the breeding-habits of the turtles 

 kept in a pond near the dockyard in Ascension Island, Moseley states that in the 

 breeding-season the females dig great holes as large as themselves in a bank of 

 sand, in which to deposit their eggs. The sand in which the eggs are laid does not 

 feel warm to the hand, but during the daytime is rather cool, while it is at all 

 times moist. Its temperature appears to undergo no material variation, owing 

 to the depth at which the eggs are deposited ; such medium amount of heat being 

 sufficient for the hatching. 



Although a large number of green turtle are captured by being turned on 

 their backs while on shore, in the Seychelles and Bahamas they are harpooned. 

 In Keeling Island the method of capture is described by Darwin as follows : 

 " The water is so clear and shallow that, although at first a turtle dives quickly 

 out of sight, yet, in a canoe or boat under sail, the pursuers, after no long chase, 

 come up to it. A man, standing nearly in the bows at this moment, dashes 

 through the water upon the turtle's back, then, clinging with both hands to the 

 shell of the neck, he is carried away, till the animal becomes exhausted, and is 

 secured." In China and Mozambique turtles are captured by means of sucking- 

 fishes, which are taken to a spot where the reptiles are basking upon the surface 

 of the water. Each fish has a ring round its body to which a line is attached, and 

 as soon as it securely fastens itself by its sucking-disc to the back of a turtle, both 

 captor and captured are drawn ashore. Although those of the loggerhead have a 

 somewhat musky taste, the eggs of the other species of turtle are much esteemed 

 as articles of food, while all yield a valuable oil. 



As already said, tortoise-shell is a product of the hawksblll turtle, 

 and it is too often taken from the back of the living animal by the 

 aid of heat, after which painful operation the unfortunate turtle is returned to its 

 native element. As the raw tortoise-shell is very unlike the finished article, with 

 which all are familiar, Bell's brief account of the process of manufacture may be 

 quoted. The horny shields, as removed from the turtle, being highly curved, " the 

 uneven curvature is first of all to be removed, and the plate rendered perfectly flat. 



