19 
In favour of caret (liawksbill turtle) raising may be cited 
the experience of The Mahe Syndicate Ltd., which owns several 
parks in the Alphonse Group. 10 carets 7 to 9 years old, put 
in park 6 years ago, gave the following yield of shell :— 
Shell 
kil. 
7.125 
Hoofs 
... 
1.960 
Plastrons... 
... 
1.825 
10.910 for the ten, 
or more than 1 kilo per caret in 8 years. 9 carets taken in the 
ordinary way at the same time gave the following results :— 
Shell ... ... kil. 12.880 
Hoofs ... ... „ 4.525 
Plastrons... ... ,, 1.920 
19.325 for the nine, 
or about double the yield of shells (kil. 2.148). A great dif¬ 
ference was seen in the thickness of the shells and not in the 
size of the carets. This is jirobably due to age. Three kilos 
appear to be the maximum yield of a caret. 
The young carets reared at Alphonse produced shell of the 
same value as the carets taken in the ordinary way, and there¬ 
fore the question of bringing carets to a commercial size in less 
than 10 years has been solved. The carets were fed on jelly¬ 
fish, fish, and shellfish, but various things go to show that 
these turtles feed also on special seaweeds and sponges, as 
shown by the contents of their stomach. 
It is therefore evident that the best methods of raising 
carets should be demonstrated by more systematic experiments 
than those which can be performed spasmodically by the own¬ 
ers of the parks. Pishing is difiicult at certain seasons of the 
year, and it is not always possible to obtain the quantity of 
fish, salted or not, necessary for the rearing of several thou¬ 
sands of small carets (about 2 lbs for each caret under two 
years, and the quantity doubling every year until the 6th year). 
They should be fed with other sea organisms and weeds as well, 
but experiments have to be made in order to determine what 
seaweeds can be made use of. The question is rather impor¬ 
tant as the point is not yet settled, to my knowledge, as to 
whether the carets are migratory animals or not, and whether 
they live in continental waters on the coast of Africa and come 
only to the Seychelles Islands to lay their eggs. If that is so, 
whether the food of the carets during the breeding season is 
the same as that obtained when they live in their natural 
habitat. Most people believe here that the other turtle 
{Chelone mydas) migrate from East Africa to Seychelles, and 
that they are more common at certain seasons of the year 
round the Outlying Islands. It is well known that at Aldabra 
in September, October and November, the turtles off Picard 
Island number thousands, but that they disappear soon after¬ 
wards. 
There are other weeds and organisms, like Gelidium, Medu¬ 
sae, Holothurians (Trepang), &c., with which the local fisher¬ 
men are not sufficiently acquainted. There is little doubt that 
systematic experiments should be made in order to disclose the 
importance of these resoui’ces and the readiness with which 
some of them, like seaweeds, are transformed into articles of 
food and transportation. It should be made known how fishes 
depend on other organisms, seaweeds and phankton {diatoms) 
for their food and the necessary connection between each of 
these organisms. It is not generally known that medusae live 
on small fish and that medusae serves as food for some of the 
larger fishes. Many fishermen think that the young 
holothurians (Trepang) are not found in the archipelago they 
having seen the mature ones only. This is apparently because 
the appearance of the young holothurian is in shape and in 
colour different at different ages or that they are eaten by 
large fishes. 
