92 CLASS REPTILIA. 



which, SO long abandoned, must now be in great plenty and 

 excellence ; and a few fishers put on board each ship trading 

 to Jeddo, might surely find very lucrative employment with 

 a long-boat or pinnace, at the time their vessels were selling 

 their cargo in the port, and, Avhile busied in this gainful 

 occupation, the coasts of the red sea might be fully ex- 

 plored." 



The species figured and described by Bruce, does not 

 appear, however, to be the one we have been now describing. 

 The scales are not imbricated. 



The Loggerhead turtle (Testudo caretta) is considered to 

 be one of the largest, if not the very largest of its genus. A 

 skull, supposed to belong to it, which was in the Leverian 

 Museum, is said to have been taken from a turtle weighing 

 more than sixteen hundred pounds, and measured more than 

 a foot in length. In general appearance, this turtle most 

 nearly resembles the mydas ; but the head is considerably 

 larger, the breadth of the shell greater in proportion, and the 

 colours deeper and more varied. It has also fifteen dorsal 

 segments, or scutella of the shell, and there are but thirteen 

 in mydas. This number is observed to be pretty constant, 

 and may therefore form a specific character of some certainty. 

 These scutella, or dorsal segments in the middle range, are 

 very protuberant, and form a row of tubercles on the middle 

 of the back of the shield. The fore-feet are very large and 

 long ; the hinder shorter, but broad. 



The habitat of this turtle is the same as that of mydas ; 

 but it is also found in remoter latitudes, and even in the 

 Mediterranean, especially about the coasts of Italy and Sicily. 

 It is of little or no value in a commercial point of view — the 

 flesh being coarse and rank, and the shell of no utility in the 

 arts. It affords oil, however, which may be used for 

 lamps, &c. 



The loggerhead-turtle is a powerful, fierce, and vora- 



