[Footnote 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 AElian, that in the seas off Ceylon there are tortoises so large that several persons may find ample shelter beneath a single shell.[3]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 2:  Chelonia virgata, Schweig.]

[Footnote 3:  “Tiktontai de ara en taute te thalatte, kai chelonai megintai, onper oun ta elytra orophoi ginontai kai gar esti kai mentekaideka pechon en cheloneion, hos hypoikein ouk oligous, kai tous helious pyroiestatous apostegei, kai skian asmetois parechei.”—­Lib. xvi. c. 17.  AElian 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?]