Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo17amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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290 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL pounds, with a shell 1314 inches long, 9 inches wide, and 5i/4 inches deep.^ (Later we secured a small specimen on Captiva Island, which weighed 4% pounds, was 8I/2 inches long, 6 inches wide, and 31^ inches deep.) How this big tortoise got to the island is some- thing of a mys- tery, as the s)je- cies is entirely terrestrial; it must have been drifted out by some accident of flood or sti)nii. The gopher tortoise is a vege- table feeder and its flesh is good eating. Wc found the meat de- licious. Unlike our common box tortoise the plas- tron is not hinged, but when alarm- ed, the creature draws in the head completely out of sight, and tucks back the feet so that only the rou.gh, flat, scaly surfaces are exposed. The tur- tle is then practically immune from attack. I was much interested to be told by Captain McCann that he had once found a diamond-back rattlesnake with a small specimen of this species of tortoise inside of him. Captain )\IcCann is an accurate and trustworthy observer. I had supposed that rattlesnakes fed exclusively on birds and mammals. ^ The gopher tortoise (Testudo polyphemus) has been known to attain a length of eighteen inches, altiiough the average size is probably in the neigh- borhood of one foot.
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Mr. Russell J. Coles, whose observations on turtles are quoted in the article, and whom Colonel Roosevelt accompanied as guest on his recent devilfish hunt off the west coast of Flor- ida. Mr. Coles is scientific authority on the devilfish (Manta biroatris), as well as the great- est hunter of the species In the fringe of mangrove swamp on the island we got three small diamond- l)ack terrapin of the Gulf variety. Out in the bay we once or twice saw loggerhead turtles. Mr. Coles and the ))rofessional fishermen who were with us related many instances of attacks they had wit- nessed by sharks on full-grown sea turtles, both the loggerhead and the green turtle. I knew that >b;ii-ks gulped down small tur- tles whenever tiiey met them, but I had not realized that they attacked the big ones. My com- panions, how- ever, assured me that nearly half of the full-grown turtles wliicli they had caught showed signs of having been at- tacked at one time or another by sharks. Usu- ally this meant that one flipper was gone. In one case the turtle had lost two flippers, obviously at different times. On one occasion Captain Jack was attracted by a great commotion in the water and sailed toward the scene. He found a very large shark with a huge loggerhead turtle in his mouth, the tur- tle frantically waving all four legs while the shark shook its head in the effort to get its teeth through the shell. The final outcome he was not able to observe. Sir. Coles said that on several occasions he

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