4242 The Zoologist — November, 1874. 



An old Torloiset — I send you the following, cut from our local paper, 

 the Elktou ' Democrat' of October 3rd, 1874 : — " Mr. Joseph Benjamin, of 

 Bay View, exhibited at our office, on Tuesday, a land tortoise having carved 

 upon the under or smooth part of the shell the inscription, 'J. B., 1827.' 

 Mr. Benjamin states that in that year (then a boy fourteen years of age) he 

 recollects having picked up the tortoise in a field belonging to his father, 

 and that he marked it as above with a penknife, and put it down again. 

 After about twenty years be came across the tortoise in the same field, and 

 carried it to his house, and the * critter ' wended its way back to its old 

 quarters. Since then he has seen it frequently, and always took it home, 

 and it, in turn, would go to its old hunting grounds. The tortoise seems 

 not to have increased in size, as it bears marks of having been attacked 

 by a dog at the time Mr. Benjamin first saw it, forty-seven years ago. 

 Mr. Benjamin sets great store by his prize, and says he intends to keep it 

 as a relic of his boyhood. We have often heard of old tortoises, but this is 

 the first one we have seen that could be vouched for." Benjamin is a 

 farmer living near here, and I think there is no reason to doubt the veracity 

 of his statement. The land tortoise is very common here, and I have 

 requently found them with names and initials engraved on their shells. 

 We also have the " snapping turtle" and " terrapin," both of which are very 

 nice eating, and are common in all our streams. — Edward Sweetapplc ; 

 Public Ledijer Pajyer Mills, Elkton, Maryland, October 8, 1874. 



Turtle in Mount's Bay. — A turtle, alive, was yesterday morning taken 

 in a pilchard drift-net, about two miles south of Mouseholo Island, in 

 Mount's Bay, a spot well within the headlands of the bay : this would be iu 

 about twenty-nine fathoms water, rocky bottom, and the net would be fishing 

 at from two to four fathoms from the surface. Its weight is about seventy 

 to eighty pounds, and it corresponds in all respects with AVoods description 

 of the "green turtle," except that its upper mandible projects slightly over 

 the lower, and neither upper nor lower is (that I, examining it in a show- 

 booth, could see) notched or serrated. The plates of the carapace corre- 

 sponded precisely with those of the green turtle, and did not overlap, as is 

 mentioned in the hawk's bill. When captured it was covered with barnacles 

 and sea-weed, but showed no signs of weakness. The fore left flapper is 

 partly caixied away, but the wound is an old one, or at least is thoroughly 

 healed. I take it for granted that the reptile must have been lost from 

 some ship homeward bound from the West Indies or thereaway ; but I note 

 the fact that no ship known to have turtles on board has been lost in 

 Mount's Bay since one in the winter of 1871 — 2, from which to my know- 

 ledge, two living turtles were saved. — Thomas Cornish; Penzance, October G, 

 1874. 



