REPTILES OF BERMUDA. 297 
continues for considerable lengths of time. A strong nail on the first 
digit of the forward paddles is bent downward so as to form a hook, 
with which the shell of the female is grasped. ‘‘ From two to four, some- 
times five, lots of eggs, from 75 to 200 each, are laid in a season.” The 
layings are fourteen to fifteen days apart—‘‘ never more than fifteen 
nor less than fourteen; so we know just when to expect her again, and 
always very near the place where she laid the first lot.” 
The nests are made at night. About to lay, the turtle approaches 
the shore cautiously; if not disturbed she lands and at once proceeds 
to select a place to dig. The excavation is a foot or more in depth. 
After the sand has been scooped out by the paddles and the eggs laid, 
the sand is replaced carefully and packed by the weight of the body 
during replacement. The trail from the water to the nest resembles the 
track of a stone-sled and leads to a space larger than the turtle which 
has been much trampled over. Somewhere in this space the turtler 
expects to find the eggs. He uses a small stick with which he probes 
the trodden area in all parts until, plunged through one or more of the 
eggs, the yelk upon the probe locates them. A story is told by the 
hunters to the effect that after the nest is finished the turtle goes along 
the beach a little way to trample over another space, in which no eggs 
are placed, before returning to the water. On the fourteenth or fifteenth 
night she is expected to return and make another nest near the first. 
The hunter waits for her, and after she has left the water turns her on 
her back. She is unable to right herself when turned, and her captor re- 
turns at his leisure to take her tomarket. The eggs hatch in six to eight 
weeks, and the young scramble into the water at once. They have no 
means of defense, and are eagerly preyed upon by various birds and 
fishes on their way and after they reach the sea. In the stomach of a 
shark, which the kindness of Lieut. S. M. Ackley, U. S. N., enabled me 
to examine, a 10-pound Green Turtle was found. The shell was too hard 
for the shark’s teeth, and was scored all over by the efforts of the ‘‘man- 
eater” to divide it. Discouraged in his attempts he had at last swal- 
lowed it entire. The greatest destruction undoubtedly takes place dur- 
ing the first month or two of existence, while the shell is comparatively 
soft and the size such as places the little creatures at the mercy of the 
fowls and most of the common fishes. 
It will be seen that the Florida authorities place the egg-laying time 
in April, May, and June; in this they agree with the majority. The 
notice cited above from William Strachy’s narrative apparently places 
