Page:Natural History, Reptiles.djvu/44

36 "one, six feet long and four feet broad, weighing betwixt eight and nine hundred pounds, was caught in the harbour of Dieppe after a storm. In 1754, a still larger one, upwards of eight feet long, was caught near Antioche, and was carried to the Abbey of Long-veau, near Vannes in Britany; and in the year 1810, I saw a small one which had been caught amongst the submarine rocks near Christchurch, Hants."

This is the species the flesh of which is so highly esteemed, that it forms no unimportant article of commerce. Great numbers are imported every season for the supply of the London hotels and eating-houses, and these are chiefly brought from the West Indies and from Ascension Island. Ships proceeding on long voyages through the tropical seas always endeavour to recruit their supplies of fresh provisions, by calling at the islands where these animals are known to abound, and taking in a large number of living Turtle, as they are readily preserved in health for a long time with little trouble and without food.

The mode of taking Turtle is thus graphically described by Sir J. E. Alexander, as he witnessed it at Ascension, which island he calls the head-quarters of the finest Turtle in the world:—

"We walked down to the Turtle ponds, two large enclosures near the sea, which flowed in and out through a breakwater of large stones. A gallows was erected between the two ponds, where the Turtle are slaughtered for shipping, by suspending them by the hind flippers, and then