260 SNAKES, TURTLES, LIZARDS, CROCODILES 



Sea turtles. — We begin with the marine species because 

 these comprise the largest forms. Among the sea turtles 

 occurring along the Atlantic coast is the great leather-back 

 turtle, one of the largest living turtles, which attains a 

 length of six to eight feet and weighs nearly a thousand 

 pounds. Its bony, boxlike body is covered with a thick, 

 leathery skin and the toes are joined together to form pad- 

 dles for swimming. Another is the hawktUl turtle, which 

 is not much over a third as large as the leather turtle. 

 The bony box in which it is incased is covered with horny 

 scales which fiirnish the "tortoise shell" of commerce. 

 These scales, or plates, peel off when the shell is properly 

 heated. 



A third sea turtle is the green turtle. This turtle has 

 gained considerable notoriety from the fact that it furnishes 

 the basis for that delicious dish, green turtle soup. This 

 reptile occurs in all tropical seas, but in our own coimtry 

 it is found along the Atlantic coast from the Carolinas 

 south, and often weighs as much as eight hundred pounds. 

 It lives on the roots of a sea plant known as eel grass or 

 turtle grass. In the early summer the female turtle 

 crawls on to the sandy shores of islands in the Gulf of Mexico 

 or Caribbean Sea and lays, in a hollow which she scoops out 

 of the sand, from one to two hundred eggs about the size 

 of hen's eggs. When through laying, she covers the eggs 

 with sand and sHps into the sea. 



Painted turtle. — This turtle is very common in the ponds 

 and streams from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. During 

 the winter it hibernates, but it comes forth with the first 

 warm days of spring. Its advent is often heralded by shrill 

 piping notes. The eggs, laid in a sand bank, are hatched 

 by the sun. Above, the plates of this turtle's shell are a 



