CHAPTER XVI, 



THE TUETLE. 



" Here the young turtle, crawling from his shell, 

 Steals to the deep wherein his parents dwell ; 

 Chipped by the beam, a nursling of the day, 

 But hatched for ocean by the fostering ray." BYRON. 



T was a great loss to the epicures of Rome that 

 they knew nothing of the TURTLE ! How an 

 Apicius, a Crassus, an Asinius Polio, or a 

 Sergius Grata would have revelled in all the 

 luxuries of calipash and calipee ! What oceans of turtle- 

 soup would have flooded their banquets ! The Shah of 

 Persia rejoiced, it is said, that he had visited England, 

 because the visit had made him acquainted with the merits 

 of this famous dish. We may be sure that they would 

 have been as fully appreciated by the Roman gourmands, 

 and that they would have cultivated the turtle as assidu- 

 ously as they cultivated the mursena, the mullet, and the 

 oyster. It was not, however, until European enterprise 

 had discovered and colonized the West Indies that the 

 value of the turtle became known to our cooks. 



The first glance at one of these reptiles for the 

 Ckeloniadce belong to the class Reptilia^ and not the class 



