times in each year, at intervals of about a fortnight or three weeks. They almost always go ashore in the night time. A loose sand being essential to the hatching of the eggs, the turtles frequent only particular shores; but these are often several hundred miles from their feeding places. The eggs are hatched in less than a month after they are laid; and in about eight or ten days the young reptiles crawl to the water. Few, however, reach their native element, in proportion to the number produced. They become the prey of sea-fowl and various quadrupeds of prey. The tiger is an especial enemy to the tortoise; but man is still more actively engaged in their destruction. The collection of tortoise eggs forms one of the most important of the occupations of the Indians of the Orinoco. Humboldt has given a most interesting account of this branch of commerce, of which we shall furnish an abstract in a future number. The wood-cut at the head of this article represents the manner in which the marine tortoises are caught on the coast of Cuba, and on parts of the South American continent. The Count de Lacepede, in his History of Oviparous Quadrupeds, has described the various modes in which the business of tortoise-catching is carried on; and we shall conclude this notice with an abstract of his account. It must be remarked that the turtle is a most important addition to the ordinary mode of victualling a ship; and that, therefore, the war in which the human race engages against them is rendered absolutely necessary by the wants of navigators. The turtles which are demanded in England for the gratification of a luxurious appetite, constitute a very small number, when compared with those which offer an agreeable and salutary food to the hardy crews who are engaged in the commerce of the tropical seas. “In spite of the darkness which is chosen by the female tortoises for concealment when employed in laying their eggs, they cannot effectually escape from the pursuit of their enemies: the fishers wait for them on the shore, at the beginning of the night, especially when it is moonlight, and, either as they come from the sea, or as they return after laying their eggs, they either dispatch them with blows of a club, or turn them quickly over on their backs, not giving them time either to defend themselves, or to blind their assailants, by throwing up the sand with their fins. When very large, it requires the efforts of several men to turn them over, and they must often employ the assistance of handspikes or levers for that purpose. The buckler of this species is so flat as to render it impossible for the animal to recover the recumbent posture, when it is once turned on its back. “A small number of fishers may turn over forty or fifty tortoises, full of eggs, in less than three hours. During the day, they are employed in securing those which they had caught in the preceding night. They cut them up, and salt the flesh and the eggs. Sometimes they may extract above thirty pints of a yellow or greenish oil from one large individual; this is employed for burning, or, when fresh, is used with different kinds of food. Sometimes they drag the tortoises they have caught, on their backs, to enclosures, in which they are reserved for occasional use. “The tortoise fishers from the West Indies and the Bahamas, who catch these animals on the coasts of Cuba and its adjoining islands, particularly...