TURTLES. 
85 
dropped one by one, and disposed in regular layers, to the number of one hundred 
and fifty, or sometimes nearly two hundred. The whole time spent in this part 
of the operation may be about twenty minutes. She now scrapes the loose sand 
back over the eggs, and so levels and smooths the surface that few persons on seeing 
the spot could imagine that anything had been done to it. This accomplished to 
her mind, she retreats to the water with all possible despatch, leaving the hatching 
of the eggs to the heat of the sand.” During a season each female will lay three 
clutches of eggs, at intervals of from a fortnight to three weeks, usually from one 
hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty in number. No sooner are the 
young turtles hatched, than hosts fall victims to land-crabs, frigate-, and other sea¬ 
birds, while, when they reach the sea, they are attacked by swarms of predaceous 
fishes. To escape the latter, the young reptiles allow themselves to be carried out 
by currents into deep water, where they are less readily seized. During the 
breeding-season the males fight desperately with one another, to the great joy of 
the sharks, by whom the disabled ones are seized. 
When first laid, the round eggs of turtles are never quite full, but before 
hatching become fully distended. In describing the breeding-habits of the turtles 
kept in a pond near the dockyard in Ascension Island, Moseley states that in the 
breeding-season the females dig great holes as large as themselves in a bank of 
sand, in which to deposit their eggs. The sand in which the eggs are laid does not 
feel warm to the hand, but during the daytime is rather cool, while it is at all 
times moist. Its temperature appears to undergo no material variation, owing 
to the depth at which the eggs are deposited; such medium amount of heat being 
sufficient for the hatching. 
Although a large number of green turtle are captured by being turned on 
their backs while on shore, in the Seychelles and Bahamas they are harpooned. 
In Keeling Island the method of capture is described by Darwin as follows:— 
“ The water is so clear and shallow that, although at first a turtle dives quickly 
out of sight, yet, in a canoe or boat under sail, the pursuers, after no long chase, 
come up to it. A man, standing nearly in the bows at this moment, dashes 
through the water upon the turtle’s back, then, clinging with both hands to the 
shell of the neck, he is carried away, till the animal becomes exhausted, and is 
secured.” In China and Mozambique turtles are captured by means of sucking- 
fishes, which are taken to a spot where the reptiles are basking upon the surface 
of the water. Each fish has a ring round its body to which a line is attached, and 
as soon as it securely fastens itself by its sucking-disc to the back of a turtle, both 
captor and captured are drawn ashore. Although those of the loggerhead have a 
somewhat musky taste, the eggs of the other species of turtle are much esteemed 
as articles of food, while all yield a valuable oil. 
As already said, tortoise-shell is a product of the hawksbill turtle, 
Tortoise-S e . - g ^ 00 0 £^ en t a k en f r0 m the back of the living animal by the 
aid of heat, after which painful operation the unfortunate turtle is returned to its 
native element. As the raw tortoise-shell is very unlike the finished article, with 
which all are familiar, Bell’s brief account of the process of manufacture may be 
quoted. The horny shields, as removed from the turtle, being highly curved, “ the 
uneven curvature is first of all to be removed, and the plate rendered perfectly flat. 
