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to take a survey of the sand where she designs to lay. Having marked the spot, she goes back without laying, for that night, to the ocean again; but the next night returns to deposit a part of her burthen. She begins by working and digging in the sand with her fore-feet till she has made a round hole, a foot broad and a foot and a half deep, just at the place a little above where the water reaches highest. This done, she lays eighty or ninety eggs at a time, each as big as a hen's egg, and as round as a ball. She continues laying about the space of an hour; during which time, if a cart were driven over her, she would not be induced to stir. The eggs are covered with a tough white skin, like wetted parchment. When she has done laying, she covers the hole so dexterously, that it is no easy matter to find the place; and those must be accustomed to the search to make the discovery. When the turtle has done laying, she returns to the sea, and leaves her eggs to be hatched by the heat of the sun. At the end of fifteen days she lays about the same number of eggs again; and at the end of another fifteen days she repeats the same; three times in all, using the same precautions every time for safetyion end ap

In about twenty-four or twenty-five days after laying, the eggs are hatched by the heat of the sun; and the young turtles, being about as big as quails, are seen bursting from the sand, as if earth-born, and running directly to the sea, with instinct only for their guide: but, to their great misfortune, it often happens, that their strength being small, the surges of the sea, for some few days, beat them back

upon the shore. Thus exposed, they remain a prey to thousands of birds that then haunt the coasts; and these stooping down upon them carry off the greatest part, and sometimes the whole brood, be fore they have strength sufficient to withstand the waves, or dive to the bottom. Helbigius informs us, that they have still another enemy to fear, which is no other than the parent that produced them, that waits for their arrival at the edge of the deep, and devours as many as she can. This circumstance, however, demands further confirmation; though nothing is more certain than that the crocodile acts in the same unnatural manner*.

When the turtles have done laying, they then return to their accustomed places of feeding. Upon their outset to the shore, where they breed, they are always found fat and healthy: but upon their return, they are weak, lean, and unfit to be eaten. They are seldom therefore molested upon their retreat; but the great art is to seize them when arrived, or to intercept their arrival. In these uninhabited islands, to which the green turtle chiefly resorts, the men that go to take them, land about night-fall, and without making any noise (for those animals, though without any external opening of the ear, hear very distinctly, there being an auditory conduit that opens into the mouth,) lie close while they see the female turtle coming on shore. They let her proceed to her greatest distance from

[*This account of the Turtle's preying on its young, is altogether fabulous. These animals feed entirely upon those vast masses of marine plants cast upon the coasts, and probably upon thẻ numerous living substances floating on shore with these plants.]

the sea; and then, when she is most busily employed in scratching a hole in the sand, they sally out and surprise her. Their manner is to turn her upon her back, which utterly incapacitates her from moving; and yet, as the creature is very strong, and struggles very hard, two men find it no easy matter to lay her over. When thus secured they go to the next; and in this manner, in less than three hours, they have been known to turn forty or fifty turtles, each of which weighs from a hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds. Labat assures us, that when the animal is in this helpless situation, it is heard to sigh very heavily, and even to shed tears.

At present, from the great appetite that man has discovered for this animal, they are not only thinned in their numbers, but are also grown much more shy. There are several other ways, therefore, contrived for taking them. One is, to seize them when coupled together, at the breeding season, when they are very easily approached, and as easily seen; for these animals, though capable of living for some time under water, yet rise every eight or ten minutes to breathe. As soon as they are thus perceived, two or three people draw near them in a canoe, and slip a noose either round their necks or one of their feet. If they have no line, they lay hold of them by the neck, where they have no shell, with their hands only; and by this means they usually catch them both together. But sometimes the female escapes, being more shy than the male.

Another way of taking them is by the harpoon, either when they are playing on the surface of the

water, or feeding on the bottom; when the hars poon is skilfully darted, it sticks fast in the shell of the back; the wood then disengages from the iron, and the line is long enough for the animal to take its range; for if the harpooner should attempt at once to draw the animal into his boat, till it is weakened by its own struggling, it would probably get free. Thus the turtle struggles hard to get loose, but all in vain; for they take care the line fastened to the harpoon shall be strong enough to hold it.

There is yet another way, which, though seemingly awkward, is said to be attended with very great success. A good diver places himself at the head of the boat; and when the turtles are ob served, which they sometimes are in great numbers, asleep on the surface, he immediately quits the -vessel at about fifty yards distance, and keeping still under water, directs his passage to where the turtle was seen, and, coming up beneath, seizes it by the tail; the animal awaking, struggles to get free; and by this both are kept at the surface until the boat arrives to take them in.

ONE is apt to combine very dissimilar objects in the same 'groupe, when hurried into the vortex of method. No two animals are more unlike each

other than the whale and the limpet, the tortoise and the oyster. Yet, as these animals must find some place in the picture of animated nature, it is best to let them rest in the station which the generality of mankind have assigned them; and as they have been willing to give them all, from their abode, the name of fishes, it is wisest in us to conform.

But before I enter into any history of shell-fish, it may not be improper to observe, that naturalists who have treated on this part of history, have entirely attended to outward forms; and, as in many other instances, forsaking the description of the animal itself, have exhausted all their industry in describing the habitation. In consequence of this radical error, we have volumes written upon the subject of shells, and very little said on the history of shell-fish. The life of these industrious creatures, that for the most part creep along the bottom, or immovably wait till driven as the waves happen to direct, is almost entirely unknown. The wreathing of their shells, or the spots with which they are tinctured, have been described with a most disgusting prolixity; but their appetites and their combats, their escapes and humble arts of subsistence, have been utterly neglected.

As I have only undertaken to write the history of animated nature, the variety of shells, and their peculiar spots or blemishes, do not come within my design. However, the manner in which shells are formed is a part of natural history connected with my plan, as it pre-supposes vital force or industry in the animal that forms them.

The shell may be considered as a habitation