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TURTLES.
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for two or three years in the ponds. She contrived, however, one night to crawl round the enclosure, and make her escape; but she was turned next year in Clarence Bay. Another Turtle was also turned there, a short time since, on the back shell of which was carved the name of a mate of a British vessel, who had bought it and sailed with it three weeks before; it is probable that, imagining it to be dead, he had thrown it overboard. The best way to send home Turtle from Ascension, is to 'head them up' in a sealed cask, and have the water changed daily by the bung-hole and a cock. Turtle, though the extremes of heat and cold are injurious to them, should always arrive in hot weather in England. Thus, an unfortunate captain, on one occasion, took from Ascension two hundred Turtle, and timing his arrival badly, brought only four alive to Bristol!"

Catesby mentions a mode of capturing these animals besides turning them on the sands. The inhabitants of the Bahamas are very expert at the latter, and go in boats to the neighbouring coast of Cuba, where on moonlight nights they watch the passing of the female Turtles to and from their nests, and intercepting them, turn them on their backs. Leaving each as it is turned, they proceed along the shore, turning every one they meet with; knowing that they will find each on their return in the position in which it was left; for the Turtle, lying on its back, can never recover its feet by any efforts of its own. Some are so large, as to require three men to turn them. But the way in which these creatures are most commonly taken at the Ba-