HOUSE-BEARING REPTILES.

Turtles are four-legged reptiles, with short, stout, oval-shaped bodies encased in bony boxes, from which they are able to protrude their heads, legs and tails, and into which they can withdraw them, at pleasure. Considerable diversity exists in the size and shape of the box-like covering in the different species. The Box Tortoise can retire into his shell or house, closing the under part or plastron into a groove of the upper edge of the carapace, as the upper part is called, thus constituting for his security an impregnable retreat. There are species only partly enclosed by the shell, which cannot bring their heads and feet under cover.

With his house upon his back the turtle wanders about as the snail does, and against his enemies can close its doors and be emphatically not at home. He has acute sight and hearing, but is devoid of teeth, the jaws being, like those of birds, simply cased in horn. Turtles are not altogether silent creatures, for many of them are capable of producing very loud sounds.

Their eggs, which have a parchment-like covering, are buried in earth or sand, and left to themselves to hatch. The sea-turtle, our largest variety, is sometimes found to lay as many as two hundred eggs in a heap, and in tropical regions has been known to attain a weight of a thousand pounds. Even on the Atlantic Coast of the United States individuals, weighing upwards of eight hundred pounds, have not infrequently been captured.

In the four species of sea-turtles, the feet are flat and paddle-shaped, and the shell of one rather leathery than horny. Some of these marine forms are carnivorous, living on fish, mollusks and crustaceans, while others are strictly vegetarians, subsisting only on roots and the various sea-weeds. The flesh of some is rich and delicious, and a favorite and costly article of food, but of others it is coarse and ill-flavored, and necessarily not edible. The eggs, however, are always sweet, good and wholesome food. Valuable articles of commerce, such as boxes, cases, knife-handles, jewelry and other delicate ornaments, are made from the shell, for it is susceptible of a very high polish, which brings out with surprising clearness its rich brown and golden shades and markings.

Next to the sea-living turtles, come the fresh-water species, which eat both animal and vegetable foods. They enjoy much better than aught else a bed of soft mud, their heads lifted above the surface of the stagnant water, their long necks moving snake-like as they gulp in mouthful after mouthful of air. They are generally gregarious in habits, large numbers often being found huddled together in the sun on logs or banks, close to the water, into which they quickly slide upon the first intimation of danger. Timid as they are, yet they will snap and bite most furiously when taken in the hand.

Salt- and fresh-water terrapins are varieties of turtle, although some scientists restrict the latter term to marine animals that do not hibernate, and that cannot draw their head and feet inside the shell. The tortoise never goes to sea they say, can draw himself within his shell, although the Box Tortoise only can close the shell fast when thus withdrawn, and finally, that the tortoise hibernates. Some of the best and latest writers on the subject call all these animals turtles, applying the name tortoise only to the familiar Box Tortoise of the wood.

Awkward as turtles appear in their box-like covering, yet they can walk rapidly on land, are climbers of some note, and all are able to swim. The head, neck, and legs of a turtle are of a bronze, blackish green, or deep-brown color, and the shells are beautifully marked, glossy, ridged, or carved, and made up of closely-united, many-sided plates, arranged upon a thickened, lighter-colored and apparently uniform bony plate, which is capable of being separated into many independent pieces. The shell, or epidermic covering, is not brittle and lime-like, as the shells of all mollusks are, but is of the nature of horn. In general the plastron is of a lighter color than the carapace, being light-brown, yellow or cream, with yellowish lines dividing the plates, and with bordering bands of red, yellow and purple. The upper plate is usually of a very dark color, marked and lined with darker and lighter tints, and often displaying a bevelled yellow edge. Chrysemys picta, the Painted Turtle, receives his name from the beauty of his many-colored shell, while the Spotted Turtle, Nanemys guttatus, which is often called the Wood Turtle, is distinguished by the round yellow spots that are regularly distributed over his dark-colored carapace.

But of all our turtles none is so well known or so interesting in his ways as the Common Box Tortoise—Cistudo clausa. He affects dry woods, and dislikes the water, and is a long-lived creature, some individuals having been known to live more than a hundred years. Box Tortoises in confinement have been found to eat meat, insects and bread and milk from the hand, but if berries were put into their mouths they wiped them out in a very funny manner with their front feet, which they used after the fashion of a hand.

BOX-TORTOISE FEEDING ON FUNGUS.

When foraging in the woods, especially during the rainy season, at which time manifold varieties of fungi prevail, they make their meals largely upon these plants. We have seen a huge toadstool that had been gnawed off so evenly, the central pillar only being left intact, that appeared as though it had been cut away by a knife. This had been the work of the Box Tortoise, for on looking around we soon descried, moving leisurely over the leaf-strewn earth, the creature himself making a fresh attack upon another species in a little opening in the woods.

COMMON BOX TORTOISE.
Breakfasting on a Toadstool.

Very amusing it was to watch him, as with praiseworthy deliberation he ate round after round of the cap of the fungus. He would bite off a mouthful of the toadstool, chew it carefully until he had extracted the whole of the juice, then open his mouth and drop out the masticated fibre, and take a fresh mouthful, not biting inward toward the stem, but breaking off the morsel next beside that which he had just eaten. He paced round and round the fungus as he took his bites, and as the fungus decreased in regular circles, the chewed fragments increased. In less than an hour he had eaten all the disk of the fungus to the stipe, and then walked slowly away to seek for another. The discarded parts of the fungus appeared quite dry when examined, nothing nutritious being left in them. There must have been some very good reason for rejecting the central part and the stem, which were left in every instance, but what that reason was we could not imagine. If a decayed or wormy portion of a toadstool was encountered in the feeding process, he did not bite round it, but abandoned the plant altogether, and went off in quest of a fresh specimen.

Coming, in his travels, to a steep gully or ravine which he desires to cross, he does not attempt the undertaking without counting his chances of success. He seemingly revolves the matter over and over for some time in his mind, and, when at last he has reached a conclusion, draws his head and feet under cover, and by some quick, sudden jerk flings himself down to the bottom, trusting to good fortune and his own wits to making his way over the further incline. Observation teaches that his deliberations are generally attended with the accomplishment of the result to be attained.

There is a very common turtle, quite abundant in the small lakes and streams of our Western States, where he is trapped in great numbers for the market, which country people dub the Snapping Turtle, or which, from the resemblance which the head and neck, when stretched out, bear to the same parts of the alligator, takes the name of Alligator Turtle, or Chelydra serpentina, with the more learned naturalist. He has a shell too small to close over him and hide him completely, but nature, to make up for this deficiency of covering, has given him a bold and hasty temper, which leads him to snap vigorously when disturbed. Snapping Turtles live rather harmoniously together, even when confined in the same pen, and only manifest their ugly dispositions towards each other when excited by causes from without, with whose origin they have nothing to do. Contests of a very vicious character are often thus precipitated, which sooner or later end in the death of one or more of the belligerent parties.

Down in the pine countries of our Southern States lives a large, stout animal, with a shell fifteen inches in length, which is denominated the Gopher, or Testudo Carolina. These animals dwell in troops, several families digging their dens or burrows near together, the entrance thereto being about four feet long and expanding into a spacious apartment. In each burrow resides a single pair of Gophers. By day the Gophers keep close house, but by night they wander out in search of food, devouring yams, melons, corn and other garden produce. They dislike wet weather, and always go in-doors when it rains. Gophers’ eggs, which are as large as pigeons’ eggs, and also their flesh, are highly esteemed as articles of diet by the negroes.

In Europe, a near cousin of the Gopher is kept about the house for a pet. If allowed, in the autumn, to find his way into a garden, he digs a hole and hibernates, coming out in the spring. An English lady had one of these animals which lived in the kitchen. He was fond of creeping into the fireplace and getting under the grate, where he would contentedly lie until the hot coal and ashes dropped upon his back and burnt his shell. When winter came this little creature wanted to take his long sleep, and dug so persistently into baskets, drawers, boxes and closets, that finally a box of earth was given to him, into which he worked his way until out of sight, and there he remained until April sun and showers called him from his winter retreat. His fare was potatoes, carrots, turnips and bread and milk, which he especially liked.