CHAPTER XI 

 THE TURTLE 



HERE we come upon a deep-sea denizen that occu- 

 pies an almost unique position among his fellows, 

 in that he has no enemies but man. The exceptions 

 being the sperm whale and the sea elephant, as I have 

 before noted. This freedom from the fear of instant 

 death. at the mouth of a feUow-citizen is so unusual 

 among the deep-sea people that when an exception 

 comes it makes itself noticeable. But not only does the 

 Turtle commend itself to us as unique in this respect, it 

 is also one of the strangest of all the amphibia. The 

 whales must come to the surface frequently to breathe, 

 and we know fairly well upon what they feed. The seal 

 cannot remain beneath the sea nearly as long as the 

 whale, and his food is very well known ; but the Turtle, 

 in all his varieties, in all his ways, is mysterious beyond 

 the power of superlatives to express. It does not seem 

 to matter to him whether he stays beneath the surface 

 for an hour or a week, nor does it trouble him to spend 

 an equal time on land, if the need arises. He is neither 

 fish, flesh, nor fowl, yet his flesh partakes of the charac- 

 teristics of aU three. Eating seems a mere superfluity 

 with him, since for weeks at a time he may be headed 

 up in a barrel (with the bung out) and emerge at the 

 long last apparently none the worse for his enforced 

 abstinence from food, from light, and almost from air. 

 His range is restricted to the temperate and tropical 

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