Before hoisting in a turtle, see that your oars are properly stowed away. We once landed a heavy loggerhead upon an oar half drawn into the boat, with the result that it was driven through the bottom, and the accident discovered only when the boat was a third full of water. In spite of hard bailing, by the time the turtle had been shifted, and the guide had whipped off his shirt and stuffed it into the hole, the boat was in a sinking condition, and the turtle had most of the fun to itself.
Though its reputation is deservedly less than that of its green relative, the loggerhead nevertheless makes excellent soup, but you have to dress your own turtle if you want to utilise it in this way. The first thing is to kill it, and killing a turtle is easier to write than to do. Its head must be cut off at any cost, and the particular cost to avoid is having your fingers nipped off. Always bear in mind that the shell is a very important part of the skeleton; the ribs and neck are firmly joined to it. The big bones fore and aft, as well as the shoulder blades and pelvis, are separate; otherwise all the solid parts and the shell are one. I am not desiring to discourse on the anatomy of the turtle, but this unity with the shell is worth remembering by any one attempting to remove the head.
To get at the turtle’s best meat you have to cut round the margin of the under plates and lift up the lid. Even then, unless you have some experience of the composition of the animal, it is by no means easy to be sure that you have struck the liver, and not some other part that you do not want. A turtle is one of those creatures that do not seem nearly dead when you have killed them. When the turtles are pairing, by the way, nothing will drive them from each other’s company, and there can under the circumstances be no possible sport or advantage in killing them, particularly as the male is then unfit for food.
Such are some of the fruits of harpooning. It will be found a pleasant change, exercising a new combination of the senses
HOISTING A TURTLE ON BOARD.
and muscles, and requiring some skill; but it is, of course, only a bastard form of sport, and is usually resorted to on days when the tarpon will not feed, or the tide is too strong for fishing. The turtle is the only useful animal taken on that coast by such means, and there is this excuse for harpooning your turtle that you cannot get them in any other way. The turtle’s cousin on land, the gopher tortoise, which is common enough in those parts, is said to be taken in a very curious way, though, as the animal is useless, few put it to the test. This tortoise lives in underground burrows, not unlike rabbit earths, and its abundance may be judged by the number of such burrows. Into these the natives say they drop a ball attached to a string, a sudden intrusion that infuriates the occupant of the burrow, who, in his slow and sure fashion, pursues it into daylight, and is then easily secured. I hand on the story for what the cautious reader may think it worth. Personally, I am not much inclined, from my limited knowledge of reptile habits, to credit it.