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The creature seems also to be endowed with greater vitality than the other species, and this fact may excite the wonder of those who have seen the heart of a green turtle pulsate long after removal from the body, and the limbs an hour after separation shrink from the knife and quiver. The hawks-bill furnishes the tortoiseshell of commerce, and is much sought after.
The hawks-bill turtle, which gains that name from its narrow, sharp, and curved beak, like that of a hawk, is also called the imbricated turtle, because its scales overlap each other at their extremities, as tiles are placed on the roofs of houses. The green or edible turtle is of great size, weighing often six hundred pounds, and being upwards of five feet in length.
As the breeze fell light, our skipper determined to obtain a supply of turtle to feed us and his crew, and to dispose of at the first port we might touch at. He had been a turtle-hunter from his youth, and knew their ways, he told us, as well as any man. There are four different species namely, the green turtle, the hawks-bill turtle, the loggerhead turtle, and the trunk turtle.
We afterwards killed a hawks-bill turtle and two small green turtles, the flesh of which was kept for the cabin table. The meat was preserved by being cut up into slices and hung in the rigging to dry in the sun. After this we had turtle-soup, and turtle-steaks, and turtle-hash, until we agreed that we should infinitely prefer some slices of mutton.
In a standard work on natural history it is asserted that the natives remove the overlapping plates of tortoiseshell from the hawks-bill by lighting a fire on the back of the creature, causing them to peel off easily. "After the plates have been removed, the turtle is permitted to go free, and after a time it is furnished with a second set of plates."
Great care is exercised in the killing and butchering, lest a certain gland, said to be located in the neck or shoulder, be opened, as flesh cut with a knife which has touched the critical part becomes impregnated. One old seafarer acknowledges that he nearly "pegged out" as the result of a hearty meal of the liver of a hawks-bill.
He showed Miss Rolleston the enormous shell, gave her a lecture on turtles, and especially on the four species known to South Sea navigators the trunk turtle, the loggerhead, the green turtle, and the hawks-bill, from which last, and not from any tortoise, he assured her came the tortoise-shell of commerce.
The flesh is highly tainted with the specific flavour of turtle, and therefore objectionable, though blacks relish it. Further north, in some localities, it is generally believed that the flesh of the hawks-bill may be imbued with a deadly poison.
Its shell is of a dark colour. It is eaten, but is not esteemed of so good a quality as the sea turtle. The coasts are frequented by various species of sea turtle, known as the green, the hawks-bill which affords the best tortoise-shell to commerce and the trunk-turtle, which is larger than either of its two relatives. From its flesh is extracted a kind of oil, which is of considerable value.
Perhaps the poor Spaniards of those days happened in the first instance upon an ancient bull, or a hawks-bill, and tapped the poison gland, or a loggerhead or a luth, and came ever after to entertain, with right good cause, a holy terror of turtle, irrespective of species. An interesting phase in the life-history of the green turtle is the deception the female employs when about to lay eggs.
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