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NATURAL HISTORY 
SEA TORTOISE, or TURTLE. 
Sea Tortoises are of various sorts : all of 
them are good food, especially the Green 
and the Loggerhead. These are considered 
very valuable, from the delicacy of their 
flesh, and its nutritive qualities, together 
with the property of being easily digested. 
Some are so large that they weigh upwards 
of four hundred pounds. They are taken 
when sleeping on the water, or land, by 
turning them upon their backs, as they can- 
not turn over again. The females go on 
shore to lay their eggs in the sand, above 
high water mark, to the number of fifty or 
sixty at a time, which are hatched by tire 
heat of the sun; and the young ones, as 
soon as they are out of the shell, crawl to the 
sea. They are common in Jamaica. 
