HOGGERHEAD TURTLE. 87 



animal, and is even dangerous; defending itself 

 with great vigour with its legs, and being able to 

 break the strongest shells and other substances 

 with its mouth. Aldrovandus assures us> that on 

 oifering a thick walking-stick to one which he saw 

 publicly exhibited at Bologna, the animal bit it 

 in tvm in an isistant. 



The Loggerhead Turtles/' says Catesby, are 

 the boldest and most voracious of all other tur- 

 tles : their flesh is rank, and therefore little sought 

 for, which occasions them to be more numerous 

 than any other kind. They range the ocean over, 

 an instance of which, among many others that I 

 have known, ha.ppened the 20th of April, 1725, in 

 lat. 30 degrees north. When our boat was hoisted 

 out, and a Loggerhead Turtle struck as it was 

 sleeping on the surface of the water : this by our 

 reckoning, appeared to be the midway between the 

 Azores and the Bahama-Islands ; either of which 

 places being the nearest land it could come from, 

 or that they are known to frequent ; there being 

 none on the north continent of America, farther 

 north than Florida. It being amphibious, and 

 yet at so great a distance from land in the breed- 

 ing-time, makes it the more remarkable. They 

 feed mostly on shell-fish, the great strength of 

 their beaks enabling them to break very large 

 shells, as the large Buccinums and Trochi." 



The Sea Tortoises, like the terrestrial ones, may 

 well be supposed to vary a little sometimes, as to 

 the exact regularity and number of their scales or 

 scutella. We may, therefore, on this principki 



