292 REPTILES OF BERMUDA. 
shoare side, and so couering them close leaue them to the hatching of 
the Sunne, like the Manati at Saint Dominique, which made the Spanish 
Friars (at their first arriuall) make some scruple to eate them on a 
Friday, because in colour and taste the flesh is like to morsells of Veale. 
Concerning the laying of their Egges, and hatching of their young Peter 
Martyr writeth thus in his Decades of the Ocean: At such time as 
the heate of Nature moueth them to generation, they come forth of the 
Sea, and making a deepe pit in the sand, they lay three or foure hun- 
dred Egges therein: when they haue thus emptied their bag of Con- 
ception, they put as much of the same againe into the Pit as may satisfie 
to couer their Egges, and so resorte againe vnto the Sea, nothing care- 
full of their succession. At the day appointed of Nature to the procre- 
ation of these creatures there creepeth out a multitude of Tortoyses, as 
it were Pismyers out of an anthill, and this only by the heate of the 
Sunne, without any helpe of their Parents: their Egges are as big as 
Geese Egges, and themselues growne to perfection, bigger than great 
round Targets.” 
The date of depositing the eggs is somewhat earlier than that given 
by the Florida Turtlers. Striking with an iron goad is a hint of what 
is now known as pegging. Speaking of the pinnace they built, he says: 
‘“Wee breamed her otherwise with Lime made of Wilkeshels and an 
hard white stone which we burned in a kiln, slaked with fresh water, 
and tempered with Tortoyses Oyle.” In the commission of Governor 
Moore, 1612, he is requested to “be very carefull to make tryall of a 
mixture made with oyle of tortoises and powder of shells or such like, 
weh necessitye compeld our men to find ovt for there vse instead of 
pitch and tarr for trimminge there shipps, and did them excellent serv- 
ice for that purpose.” One of this governor’s companions, in a letter 
supplementing Silvanus Jourdan’s account, gives the name ‘Turkles,” 
a form which I find still to be in use in Eastern Massachusetts. ‘Tur- 
kles thare bee of a mightie bignesse: one Turkle will serue or suffice 
three or four score at a meale, especially if it be a shee Turkle, for she 
will haue as many Egges as will suffice fiftie or three-score at a meale; 
this I can assure you, for they are very good and wholesome meate, 
none of it bad, no, not so much as the very guts and maw of it, for 
they are exceeding fat, and make as good tripes as your beastes bellies 
in England. . . Also, we haue olives grow with vs, but no great 
store: many other good excellent things we haue grow with vs, which 
this short time will not permit me to write on so largely as I might: 
