Records for 540 adult T. ornata collected at the Damm Farm, the Reservation, and on roads in eastern Kansas, show that females outnumber males just before and during the nesting season and again in late autumn ([Fig. 26]). The high incidence of females in May, June, and July, can be explained by their more extensive movements associated with nesting in these months. I have no explanation for the increased number of females captured in late autumn. In April and August, the only two months in which males were more abundant than females, the samples were small. The number of juveniles collected was too small to allow any trustworthy conclusions concerning their seasonal incidence; a few juveniles were taken in nearly all the periods in which adults were active.
Risley (1933:690), studying Sternotherus odoratus in Michigan, found an over-all sex ratio of 1.0 male to 2.3 females; the percentage of females in collections ranged from 50 to 71 per cent in April and most of May and rose to 83 and 85 per cent in late May and mid-June, respectively.
The infrequency with which hatchlings and small juveniles of ornate box turtles are observed is well known to naturalists. Several of my colleagues who are expert field observers and who have lived in areas where ornate box turtles are abundant, have never seen hatchlings; many other persons have seen only one or two. Rodeck (1949:33), noting the abundance of coleopterous insects in the scats of captives and the rarity of individuals of all age groups during dry periods in Colorado, commented, "It is possible that the young are even more subterranean than the adults. Perhaps they spend their early years in rodent or other burrows where there is a fairly abundant insect fauna. Increasing size might force them to the surface for feeding, with a daily return to a burrow for resting and protection."
Fig. 25. Composition of the population of T. o. ornata at the Damm Farm based on the 194 individuals marked there in the years 1954 to 1956. Individuals smaller than 100 mm. ordinarily could not be sexed accurately and are shown as open bars. Open bars in the groups larger than 100 mm. are for females, whereas solid bars are for males.
My own experience in the field has shown that small examples of T. ornata are not so rare as previous workers have believed. Small box turtles occupy the same microhabitat as do the adults and seem not to be more aquatic or subterranean in habits. Juveniles are found in burrows, in marshy areas, and in other sheltered places, but so are adults. Most of the juveniles that I found were in open situations where adults were abundant, sometimes within several inches of a place where an adult was feeding or basking. Nearly every one of the smaller turtles was discovered when I was closely scrutinizing some other object on the ground; sometimes juveniles were actually touched before being seen. Most juveniles were covered with cow dung or mud and blended so well with the substrate that they were detected only when they moved. It is likely that only a small number of the young box turtles present in an area is ever actually observed. Young are more vulnerable to predation and injury because of their small size, soft shells, and immovable plastra. They evidently rely, to a large extent, on inconspicuousness for protection.
Fig. 26. The seasonal abundance of females of T. o. ornata based on 540 adults captured at the Damm Farm, the Reservation, and on roads in eastern Kansas, in the years 1954 to 1956. Records are grouped in periods of 30 days, the periods beginning with the dates shown at the bottoms of the bars. Juveniles are not considered. Numbers at the top of each bar indicate the size of the sample (both sexes) and give an approximate indication of relative seasonal abundance of adults, except for August, when little field work was done.