x 
16 Storer on the 
S. coriacea. Lin. The leather Tortoise. 
Plate IV. 
Pennant's British Zoology, vol. iii. p. 7, et fig. 
Shaw's Gen. Zoology, vol. iii. p. 77, et fig. 
Phil. Trans. vol. lxi. pt. 1. p. 271, et fig. 
Dum et Bibr. Hist Nat. des Rept. t. ii. p. 561. 
The only specimen I have heard of as having been 
seen on the coast of the United States, was taken 
asleep on the surface of the water in Massachusetts 
Bay, in the year 1824, and being brought to Boston, 
was purchased by Mr. Greenwood, of the New 
England Museum, of the captors, for two hundred 
dollars, and placed in this institution, where it still 
remains. The naturalist may judge of the great 
rarity of this species from the following observations 
by Dumeril and Bibron, in their * Erpétologie gén- 
érale ou Histoire Naturelle complete des Reptiles ;" 
“ This species is very rare; it inhabits the Medi- 
terranean, and the Atlantic ocean. Rondelet speaks 
of a “ Sphargis luth,” five cubits long, which was 
taken at Frontignon: Amoreux described another, 
which was captured in the harbor of Cette ; and in 
1729 a third was taken at the mouth of the Loire, 
which was described by Delafout in the “ Mém- 
oires de P Académie des Sciences.” Borlase has 
given a bad figure of a “ Sphargis luth," which 
was taken in 1756 upon the coast of Cornwall, in 
England." 
The specimen in the New England Museum 
presents the following characters: Entire length 
eighty-five inches; widest part, fourteen inches ; 
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