oup,
began scuttling away as hard as he could towards the sea. As may have
been discovered, neither Jerry nor I were fellows who ever liked to give
in; so we held on to the turtle with all our might, every now and then
lifting up one side in the hope of getting him over, when, in spite of
his strength, we should have made him ours. We shouted to Ben to come
and help us; but he was busily employed in turning the other turtles,
which, disturbed by our noise, were moving away towards the sea. Our
friend had got actually into the sea, and we still clung on though we
were up to our middles in water. We thought that by sticking to him we
might now more easily get him over. We did succeed in lifting him up a
little way, but he dealt us such severe blows with his flapper that over
we both went, getting our mouths full of sand and water, and, of course,
wet to the skin. Ben now saw that it was time to come to our aid, lest
the turtle should actually swim away with us. He rushed into the water;
but just then our friend struck out with both his paddles, and darting
away, we fell back head over heels, nor were sorry when Ben helped us to
regain _terra firma_, with our arms and legs not a little bruised with
the blows we had received.

We had no time to think of our hurts. "Come along," shouted Ben, "we
must turn a few more before they all go away." We had succeeded, we
found, in capturing nearly thirty. Leaving the poor brutes on their
backs--and very uncomfortable they must have found themselves--we
hurried back to get the canoes, that we might convey some of them
without delay to our home. We found that each canoe could only carry
three at a time, so that we had to make five or six trips to get them up
to the house. We inclosed a place in the shade, where we put them, and
kept them well supplied with wet sea-weed, so that we had hopes they
would be preserved in good condition for a long time.

Each time we visited the bay, we found it crowded with turtle. We
discovered that they assembled there to deposit their eggs. This they
do in holes which they dig out with their flappers in the sand. They
cover them up again with the same instruments, and leave them to be
hatched by the sun. We had not thought about this, when one day, as we
were pulling across the bay in our canoe, we remarked the great number
of sharks, and dog-fish, and sting-rays swimming about. Presently, as
we got close in with the shore, we saw a nu