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C. olivacea, Escha. Zool. Atlas, Tab. 3. 



C. olivacea, Oray. The Indian loggerhead. 



Never less than fifteen vertebral and costal shields, but one or 

 more may be subdivided so as to raise the number to twenty. 

 Shields of the back strongly ridged in the young, which are black. 

 Smooth in the adult. Lays in March and April over 100 eggs, 

 spherical, white with a resilient skin. Diameter 1'55. Weight 

 625 grains, and repeats the process once or twice in the year, as 

 I have extracted 260 unshelled eggs from the same female which 

 had just deposited 103 mature ones. Flesh coarse to a degree. 



Abounds in the Bay of Bengal, and is often unsuspiciously con- 

 sumed as ' real turtle' by people who know no better. 



Chelonia, Fleming. 

 Four pair of costal shields only. Herbivorous. Edible. 



C. virgata, Schw. 



Easily distinguished from the last by having one pair less of 

 costal shields. Its flesh is occasionally poisonous according to 

 Sir Emerson Tennant, who quotes a fatal case in October due to 

 its use. 



Inhabits Bay of Bengal, where it is far less numerous than 



the last, 



Caeetta Merrem. 



Four pair of costal shields. Shields of back imbricate. Car- 

 nivorous, Unedible. 



C, squamata, Bontius, 



The tortoise-shell turtle. Head elongate, narrow, and upper 

 jaw considerably beaked, whence its conrmon name of ' Hawk's 

 bUl turtle.' Scales of back keeled and imbricate. Does not 

 often exceed two feet in length. 



Inhabits Bay of Bengal, Ceylon, &;c, 



Dermatochelys, Blainville. 



Shell sub-cordiform, covered with a coriaceous skin, and tra- 

 versed by seven longitudinal ridges. Carnivorous, Unedible. 



E 



