1879. | The Leather Turtle. 635 
kinds, but these were the largest he had met in any quarter of 
the globe.” 
In the early part of the present year (1879) a fine specimen 
was shot off the coast near Wilmington, North Carolina, by Capt. 
Chadwick of that city; and still later another was caught at 
Gloucester, Virginia, by Mr. W. H. Ash, the wharf agent at the 
point, who struck it a powerful blow on the head with an oar, 
stunning it and making it an easy prey. 
The former of these, which is said to have measured seven feet 
in length by three and a half feet in width, appears to have puz- 
zled the good people thereabouts in regard to its true character, 
some calling it a turtle and others a devil-fish, while the captain 
held to the opinion that it was Old Nick himself. Unfortunately, 
however, for their future prospects, it proved to belong to the 
species under consideration ; “ more’s the pity,” perhaps. 
The specimen taken at Gloucester Point, though smaller than 
the last mentioned, was none the less surprising to its captor and 
others who saw it, many of them being of the same opinion 
regarding the fate of “Old Nick” as their more southern 
brother. 
‘With the exception of one taken alive in Delaware bay, June 
I, 1879, the above half dozen specimens comprise, so far as any 
records appear, the whole number found on our coast since 1840, 
a fact which seems to corroborate the opinion of Dr. Holbrook, 
who assumed that they were quite rare in American waters. 
Nevertheless, Dr. Leidy, Mr. John A. Ryder and others, who 
have given the subject much attention, believe them to be more 
plentiful than has been supposed. 
As a proof at least of their wide distribution, it may be men- 
tioned that in addition to those referred to by Dr. Gray, two 
specimens were cast up on the coast of France in 1872; one of 
1 An account of this turtle was given by Dr.-D. H. Storer in his Report on the 
Reptiles of Massachusetts, 1839. The specimen there described was figured on an 
micellen plate by Dr. Jeffreys Wyman; it “ was taken asleep on the surface of the 
Massachusetts bay, in the year 1824.” A specimen weighing about 1000 
Ibs, was captured in Narragansett bay in the summer of 1878, and was presented to 
the Museum of the Brown University. Providence, R. I., where it was stuffed by the 
Curator, Prof. J. W: P. Jenks. Zditor. 
? Since the above was written I have learned from Mr. John H. Dusenbury, a 
Philadelphia dealer, that he received a dead specimen of Sphargis coriacea from 
Delaware bay, in 1872, which weighed 916 pounds; the skeleton of which was 
erwards placed in the collection belonging to Mr. O’Brien, the showman. i 
VOL. XHI.—NO. X. 43 
