THE OPEN SEA 87 
water-measurers (Hydrometride) which we 
see skating about on the surface of stagnant 
pools or even on quiet reaches of a stream, 
but if we had been asked for the unlikeliest 
haunt for an insect we should surely have said 
the open sea or the deep sea. The sea- 
skimmers appear to feed on floating dead 
animals, and when it is stormy they sink 
below the troubled waters—how, we do not 
know. Another interesting point is that the 
mother sea-skimmer has been seen carrying 
her eggs about with her after they have been 
laid. 
TURTLES 
Among the higher animals of the open sea 
must be reckoned some of the turtles; not the 
edible turtle, perhaps, for it is a vegetarian, 
and must, therefore, keep for the most part to 
the shore haunt, where seaweeds grow, but the 
carnivorous Hawksbill and the Loggerhead— 
the latter occasionally found on British coasts. 
There is also the rare Leathery or Lyre Turtle 
of most warm seas, a veritable pelagic giant. 
Dr. F. A. Lucas, Director of the American 
Museum of Natural History, tells us that he 
