Confessions of a Beachcomber - Edmund James Banfield (suggested reading txt) 📗

qualities all-sufficient? Must everything be good to eat? To the natives of the island this jewel of the sea is known as "Oo-ril-ee," and to scientists as belonging to the scaroid family.



TURTLE GENERALLY

Three species of turtle frequent these waters--the loggerhead (THALASSOCHELYS CARETTA), the hawksbill (CHELONE IMBRICATA), and the green (CHELONE MYDAS). Both of the latter are herbivorous and edible; but the flesh of the first-named, a fish and mollusc eater, is rank and strong, and it is therefore not hunted, the shell being of little if any value. Loggerhead, however, is not disregarded by the blacks, though to the unaccustomed nose the flesh has a most repulsive smell. It is powerful and fierce when molested. One which was harpooned, on being hauled up to the boat seized the gunwale and left the marks of its beak deep in the wood. 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 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. 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. Here, though the blacks take precautions in the butchering a hawks-bill (being aware of its bad repute elsewhere), they have had no actual experience of the unwholesomeness of the flesh. One old seafarer acknowledges that he nearly "pegged out" as the result of a hearty meal of the liver of a hawks-bill. As is well known, fish edible in one region may be poisonous in another (Saville-Kent); the same principle may apply to the turtle.

The flesh of the luth or leathery turtle (DERMOCHELYS CORIACEA) which diets on fish, crustacea, molluscs, radiates, and other animals, causes symptoms of poisoning; but the luth does not appear to be common in this part of the Pacific, though it occurs in Torres Straits.

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." Surely this might be classed among the fabulous stories of Munchausen. As the lungs of the turtle lie close to the anterior surface of the carapace, the degree of heat sufficient to cause the plates to come off would assuredly be fatal. Possibly there is explanation at hand. The turtle being killed, the carapace is removed and placed over a gentle fire, and then the plates are eased off with a knife. But that method is not generally approved. Professional tortoiseshell-getters either trust to the heat of the sun or bury the shell in clean sand, and when decomposition sets in, the valuable plates are detached freely. Exposure to fire deteriorates the quality of the product unless great care is exercised.

The green turtle, with thin dovetailing plates, is the most plentiful and valued principally for food. But all green turtle are not acceptable. An old bull is so rank, that "there is no living near it--it would infect the North Star!" There are many Europeans who cannot relish even good green turtle, however tender, delicate, and sweet it may be. The worthy chaplain of Anson's fleet who "wrote up" the famous voyages, has some shrewd observations on the subject of green turtle, which he refers to as the most delicious of all flesh, "so very palatable and salubrious," though proscribed by the Spaniards as unwholesome and little less than poisonous. He suggests that the strange appearance of the animal may have been the foundation of "this ridiculous and superstitious aversion." 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. Her "nests" are shallow pits in the sand. She may make several during a hasty visit to a favourite beach, while postponing the laying until the following day. Whether this is a conscious stratagem by which the turtle hopes to mislead and bewilder other animals partial to the eggs, or merely a caprice--one of those idle fancies which the feminine part of animated Nature frequently indulge in at a time when their faculties are at unusual tension--does not appear to be quite understood. When serious business is intended, the turtle scoops new pits, leaving some of them partially and others quite unfilled. These also appear to be intended to delude. That in which the eggs are deposited is filled in and the surface smoothed and flattened, and in cases where the nest is any distance beyond the limits of high-water, it is frequently carelessly covered with grass and dead leaves. The heat of the sun hatches the eggs. But the guile of the turtle is limited. However artfully the real nest may be concealed, the tracks to and fro as well as the tracks to and from the many counterfeits are as unmistakable, until the wind obliterates them, as the tracks of a treble-furrow plough. The chances against an unintellectual lover of turtle eggs discovering a fresh nest off-hand are in exact ratio to the number of deceptive appearances. In a few days all the tracks are blotted out, and then none but those skilled or possessed of keen perception may detect the nest. Blacks probe all the likely spots with spears, and soon fix on the right one.

In a certain locality where the hawks-bill turtle congregate in untold numbers, a remarkable deviation from the general habit has been observed. Several of the islands are composed of a kind of conglomerate of coral debris, shells and sand. With strange perversity some turtle excavate in the rock cylindrical shafts about 18 inches deep by 6 inches diameter with smooth perpendicular sides. There is no adjunct to the flippers which appears to be of service in the digging, yet the holes are such that a man would find it impossible to make without the use of a chisel. Whether they are dug with the flippers, or bored, or bitten out with the bill, does not appear to be known. Eggs varying in numbers from 120 to 150 are deposited in each shaft, and covered loosely with the spoil from the excavation.

When the young are hatched only those on top are able to clamber out. They represent but a very small percentage of the family. The majority die miserably, being unable to get out of what is their tomb as well as their birthplace. In the vicinity are sandy beaches on which other hawks-bill turtle deposit their eggs in accordance with time-honoured plans, and successfully rear large families. Why some individuals should be at such pains to defeat the universal instinct for the propagation and preservation of their species, is a puzzle. Moreover, hundreds of these anomalous nests are excavated some distance beyond high-water, in country where the growth of grass is so strong and dense as to form an almost impenetrable barrier to those infantile turtle which have the fortune to get out of the death-traps, and in obedience to instinct, endeavour to reach the sea. Is it that Nature, "so careful of the type" imposes Malthusian practices to avoid the danger of overcrowding the "never-surfeited sea?" Notwithstanding the positive check upon increase, the young are produced in myriads.

"Sambo," a black boy, who had visited this isle, on his return to shores where turtle are less numerous, sought to impress his master with the substantial charms of the faraway North. "When," he said, "you come close up, you look out. Hello! You think about stone. No stone; altogether turtle!"

There, to within a recent date, might be seen the bones of fourteen great green turtle side by side in a row. At first glance the scene seems a sanctified death-place for the species, until you are informed that a visitor to the isle, astonished at the number of turtle on the beach, and eager to secure an abundance of fresh meat, turned over fourteen, intending to call again for them. Circumstances prevented him from re-visiting the place, and the turtle, being unable to right themselves, perished.

Personal observation and inquiries from many men whose lives may be said to be spent among turtle on the Barrier Reef convince me that blacks never venture to get astride a turtle in the water. One more daring and agile may seize a turtle, and by throwing his weight aft cause the head to tilt out of the water. The turtle then strikes out frantically with its flippers, but the boy so counterbalances it that the head is kept above the surface continuously, until the turtle becoming exhausted is guided into shallow water or alongside a boat, where it is secured with the help of others. Boys who accomplish this feat are few and far between, though it is by no means uncommon for a turtle to be seized while in the water and overturned, in which position it is helpless. A turtle detected in shallow water falls a comparatively easy prey, for on being hustled it soon loses heart and endeavours to hide its head, ostrich-like, when it is easily captured. None unacquainted with the skill with which the creature can spar with its flippers, and the effectiveness of these flippers, when used as weapons of defence, should venture to grip a turtle in its natural element.

Another species, stated to have a circumscribed habitat, has a steep dome-shaped back, resembling at a casual glance a seamless metal casting, with the edges abruptly turned up. The head is large, the eyes deeply embedded in their sockets, and the animal has the power of protruding and withdrawing the head much more extensively developed than usual. The "death's head" staring from beneath the dome-shaped back gives to the animal a most gruesome aspect. These details are supplied by the master of a beche-de-mer schooner, to whom all the nooks and corners of the Great Barrier Reef and of the other Coral Sea beyond, from New Guinea to New Caledonia, are familiar. He says that the species, as far as his observation goes, is confined to the neighbourhood of one group of islands. To others this is known as the "bastard tortoiseshell." The back is not actually seamless, but age causes the plates to cohere so closely as to present that appearance.



THE MERMAID OF TO-DAY

Dugong (HALICORE AUSTRALIS) still frequent these waters. The rapacity of the blacks is a rapidly diminishing factor in their extermination, and the rushing to and fro of steamers, which it was thought would scare away those which remain, is becoming too familiar to be fearsome. Even in the narrow limits of Hinchinbrook Channel, through which the passing of steamers is of everyday occurrence, they still exist, though not in such numbers as in the early days. It would seem that the waters within the Great Barrier Reef may long continue