90 DERMATOCHELYS CORtACEA, 



month at half-past five o'clock she was discovered by Mr. 

 Crow on the beach near the spot where she first came up ; 

 he gave the alarm when all the neighbors assembled and 

 got her turned on her back. It took twelve men to haul 

 her 200 yards. I went and measured her and found the 

 dimensions as follows : from head to tail 6 feet 6 inches, 

 from the outer part of her "fore fin to the tip of the other 

 9 feet 2 inches, around her neck 3 feet 3 inches, widest 

 part of fore fin 18 inches, the hind fins 2 feet 4 inches. 

 Her back is formed like the round top of a trunk with 

 small white bumps in straight lines resembling the nails 

 on a trunk ; her color is variegated like the rainbow. 

 There is no shell on her back but a thick skin like pump 

 leather. The date would place the laying time in the lat- 

 ter part of March instead of as early claimed by the fish- 

 ermen and turtlers, December, January and February, 

 for this genus. Sphargis is the most rare and least known 

 of the sea turtles." 



Dr. D. Humphreys Storer in his report of the Reptiles 

 of Massachusetts, published in 1839, has the following: 

 " Sphargis coriacea. The first one taken on the coast of 

 the United States was found on the surface of the water 

 in Massachusetts Bay in 1824 and brought to Boston 

 where it was purchased by Mr. Greenwood of the New 

 England Museum of its captors for two hundred dollars." 

 In the summer of 1852 or 1853 one was washed on the shore 

 at Nahant, and one was captured on the coast of Maine in 

 July, 1866, from which specimen Prof. E. S. Morse made 

 a sketch. The one now in the cabinet of the Boston So- 

 ciety of Natural History was taken at Annisquam in 

 1880. Mr. Winchester Smith of Salem in September, 

 1882, bought one of these turtles from some fishermen in 

 Gloucester ; it was caught some distance from that port 

 and was purchased of Smith and Parker of Salem in 1884, 



