Page:Natural History, Reptiles.djvu/53

Rh The carapace is large, flat, and heart-shaped, composed of thirteen discal plates, and twenty-five marginal ones; the hinder margins of these are free, and overlap the succeeding plates, for nearly a third of their length; the muzzle is long and somewhat compressed; the jaws have straight edges, neither notched nor toothed, but curving towards each other at the extremities, where the lower shuts within the upper; each fin is furnished with two nails.

The fore-feet or paddles are larger in these species than in the rest of the Family, and it is said that the Hawksbill, unlike the Green Turtle, which is helpless when turned over on its back, can, by means of its long feet, recover its proper position.

The Hawksbill commonly grows to the length of three feet, and the width of two, but specimens are reported to have been seen of much greater size. Its flesh is of no estimation as food, being both ill-flavoured and unwholesome; its eggs, however, are highly valued. The species is not unimportant notwithstanding, for it produces almost exclusively that well known and beautiful material, so much used in the arts, called Tortoise-shell. In the luxurious ages of ancient Grecian and Roman art, this elegant substance was employed in embellishing articles of use and ornament, perhaps more copiously than with us; for they decorated their doors, the pillars of their houses, their beds, and the statues of their gods with it. Velleius Paterculus relates that when the city of Alexandria in Egypt was taken by Julius Cæsar, the warehouses were found to contain so large a quantity of this material,