2: HOOKER'S Himalayan Journals, vol. i. p. 37.
The marshes and pools of the interior are frequented by the terrapins[1], which the natives are in the habit of keeping alive in wells under the conviction that they clear them of impurities. The edible turtle[2] is found on all the coasts of the island, and sells for a few shillings or a few pence, according to its size and abundance at the moment. At certain seasons the turtle on the south-western coast of Ceylon is avoided as poisonous, and some lamentable instances are recorded of death which was ascribed to their use. At Pantura, to the south of Colombo, twenty-eight persons who had partaken of turtle in October, 1840, were seized with sickness immediately, after which coma succeeded, and eighteen died during the night. Those who survived said there was nothing unusual in the appearance of the flesh except that it was fatter than ordinary. Other similarly fatal occurrences have been attributed to turtle curry; but as they have never been proved to proceed exclusively from that source, there is room for believing that the poison may have been contained in some other ingredient. In the Gulf of Manaar turtle is frequently found of such a size as to measure between four and five feet in length; and on one occasion, in riding along the sea-shore north of Putlam, I saw a man in charge of some sheep, resting under the shade of a turtle shell, which he had erected on sticks to protect him from the sun—almost verifying the statement of Ælian, that in the seas off Ceylon there are tortoises so large that several persons may find ample shelter beneath a single shell.[3]
1: Emyda Ceylonensis, GRAY, Catalogue, p. 64, tab. 29 a.; Mag. Nat. Hist. p. 265: 1856. Dr. KELAART, in his Prodromus (p. 179), refers this to the common Indian species, E. punctata; but Dr. Gray has shown it to be a distinct one. It is generally distributed in the lower parts of Ceylon, in lakes and tanks. It is put into wells to act the part of a scavenger. By the Singhalese it is named Kiri-ibba.
2: Chelonia virgata, Schweig.
3: "Tiktontai de ara en tautê tê thalattê, kai chelônai megintai, ônper oun ta elytra orophoi ginontai kai gar esti kai mentekaideka pêchôn en chelôneion, hôs hypoikein ouk oligous, kai tous hêlious pyrôiestatous apostegei, kai skian asmetois parechei."—Lib. xvi. c. 17. Ælian copied this statement literatim from MEGASTHENES, Indica Frag. lix. 31; and may not Megasthenes have referred to some tradition connected with the gigantic fossilised species discovered on the Sewalik Hills, the remains of which are now in the Museum at the East India House?
The hawksbill turtle[1], which supplies the tortoise-shell of commerce, was at former times taken in great numbers in the vicinity of Hambangtotte during the season when they came to deposit their eggs, and there is still a considerable trade in this article, which is manufactured into ornaments, boxes, and combs by the Moormen resident at Galle. If taken from the animal after death and decomposition, the colour of the shell becomes clouded and milky, and hence the cruel expedient is resorted to of seizing the turtles as they repair to the shore to deposit their eggs, and suspending them over fires till heat makes the plates on the dorsal shields start from the bone of the carapace, after which the creature is permitted to escape to the water.[2] In illustration of the resistless influence of instinct at the period of breeding, it may be mentioned that the same tortoise is believed to return again and again to the same spot, notwithstanding that at each visit she had to undergo a repetition of this torture. In the year 1826, a hawksbill turtle was taken near Hambangtotte, which bore a ring attached to one of its fins that had been placed there by a Dutch officer thirty years before, with a view to establish the fact of these recurring visits to the same beach.[3]
1: Chelonia imbricata; Linn.
2: At Celebes, whence the finest tortoise-shell is exported to China, the natives kill the turtle by blows on the head, and immerse the shell in boiling water to detach the plates. Dry heat is only resorted to by the unskilful, who frequently destroy the tortoise-shell in the operation.—Journ. Indian Archipel. vol. iii. p. 227, 1849.
3: BENNETT'S Ceylon, ch. xxxiv.
Snakes.—It is perhaps owing to the aversion excited by the ferocious expression and unusual action of serpents, combined with an instinctive dread of attack, that exaggerated ideas prevail both as to their numbers in Ceylon, and the danger to be apprehended from encountering them. The Singhalese profess to distinguish a great many kinds, of which not more than one half have as yet been scientifically identified; but so cautiously do serpents make their appearance, that the surprise of long residents is invariably expressed at the rarity with which they are to be seen; and from my own journeys, through the jungle, often of two to five hundred miles, I have frequently returned without seeing a single snake.[1] Davy, whose attention was carefully directed to the poisonous serpents of Ceylon[2], came to the conclusion that but four, out of twenty species examined by him, were venomous, and that of these only two (the tic-polonga[3] and cobra de capello[4]) were capable of inflicting a wound likely to be fatal to man. The third is the caraicilla[5], a brown snake of about twelve inches in length; and for the fourth, of which only a few specimens have been, procured, the Singhalese have no name in their vernacular,—a proof that it is neither deadly nor abundant.