HAWKSBILL TURTLE. 23 



Islanders are accustomed to dry the flesh to supply 

 them with food during- their voyag-es. The meat is 

 cut into thin slices^ boiled in a melon shell, stuck 

 upon skewers, and dried in the sun. Prepared in 

 this manner it will keep for several weeks, but 

 requires a second cooking' before being used, on 

 account of its hardness and toug-hness. The fat 

 which rises to the surface during- the boiling- is 

 skimmed off" and kept in joints of bamboo and 

 turtle's bladders, being* much prized as food ; I 

 have even seen the natives drink it off" in its hot 

 fluid state with as much g-usto as ever alderman 

 enjoj^ed his elaborately prepared turtle soup. 



The hawksbill turtle (Caretta imbricata), that 

 chiefly producing the tortoise-shell of commerce, 

 resorts to the shores in the neighbourhood of Cape 

 York later in the season than the green species, and 

 is comparatively scarce. It is only taken at night 

 when depositing its eggs in the sand, as the sharp- 

 ness of the margin of its shell renders it dangerous 

 to attempt to turn it in the water, — indeed even the 

 green turtle, with a comparatively rounded margin 

 to the carapace, occasionally, in struggling to 

 escape, inflicts deep cuts on the inner side of the leg 

 of its captor, of which I myself have seen an instance. 

 Of the tortoise-shell collected at Cape York and the 

 Prince of Wales Islands a small portion is con- 

 verted into fish-hooks, the rest is bartered either to 

 Europeans or to the Island blacks, who fashion it 

 into various ornaments. 



