In these islands there are also some green snakes, and great numbers of remarkably tame turtle-doves, very fat, and excellent eating.  There are large channels between some of these islands, capable of receiving ships of moderate burden.  On the shoals there grows great abundance of sea-weed, called turtle-grass, owing to which these channels abound in green turtles or sea-tortoises.  There are several kinds of turtles or sea-tortoises, as the Trunk, Loggerhead, Hawksbill, and Green turtles.  The first is larger than the rest, and has a rounder and higher back shell, but is neither so wholesome nor so well tasted; and the same may be said of the Loggerhead, which feeds on moss from the rocks, and has its name from its large head.  The Hawksbill, so named from having a long small mouth, like the beak of a hawk, is the smallest species, and is that which produces the so-much-admired tortoise-shell, of which cabinets, boxes, combs, and other things are made in Europe, and of this shell each has from three to four pounds, though some have less.  The flesh of this kind is but indifferent, yet better than that of the Loggerheads; though these, which are taken between the Sambellos and Portobello, make those who eat the flesh purge and vomit excessively, and the same is observed of some other fish in the West Indies.

The laying time of the sea-tortoises is about May, June, and July, a little sooner or later, and they lay three times each season, eighty or ninety eggs each time, which are round and as large as an hen’s egg, but covered only with a thin white skin, having no shell.  When a tortoise goes on shore to lay, she is usually an hour before she returns, as she always chuses her place above high-water mark, where she makes a large hole with her fins in the sand, in which she lays her eggs, and then covers them two feet deep with the sand she had raked out.  Sometimes they go on shore the day before, to take a look of the place, and are sure to return to the same spot next day.  People take the tortoises on this occasion, while on shore in the night, turning them over on their backs, above high-water mark, and then return to fetch them off next morning; but a large Green tortoise will give work enough to two stout men to turn her over.  The Green tortoise gets its name from the colour of the shell, having a small round head, and weighs from 200 to 300 pounds.  Its flesh is accounted the best of any, but there are none of this kind in the South Sea.  The sea-tortoises found at the Gallapagos being a bastard kind of Green tortoises, having thicker shells than those of the West Indies, and their flesh not so good.  They are also much larger, being frequently two or three feet thick, and their bellies five feet broad.