

THE Gl IDE TO NATURE 



The Two-headed Turtle. 



BY I'Ail. I,, i.ih kwi , NEWARK, 



NEW JERSEY. 



Two heads may have been better 

 than one to the thieJ as In- crawled out 

 of the cabbage patch, but to this little 

 turtle, whose photograph is herewith 



THE TWO-HEADED TURTLE. 



reproduced, they proved a decided det- 

 riment. Besides being responsible for 

 his capture, they have brought him 

 considerable notoriety, and he has been 

 subjected to a rigid inspection by sev- 

 eral naturalists. 



It is of the ordinary mud turtle va- 

 riety, and not much larger than a silver 

 dollar. This queer freak of nature was 

 found by Alexander Mailey, a letter- 

 carrier attached to the Belleville pos- 

 tal station of Newark, N. J. The post- 

 man noticed the creature in the mud 

 along the side of the road and was 

 about to pass it by when he saw the 

 two heads come out from under the 

 shell. He put it in his pocket, and 

 when he had finished his route he car- 

 ried it to a dealer in birds and animals 

 who pronounced it a curiosity the like 

 of which he had not seen in thirty-two 

 years' experience. 



Each head of the little turtle is per- 

 fed in every detail, and each is on a 

 distinct neck as can be seen in the pho- 

 tograph. Its freakish anatomy sug- 

 gested innumerable possibilities, and 



a close observation of the specimen re- 

 vealed the fact that each head could 

 act tridependentl) of the other. An- 

 other thing, the right head had perfect 

 i i mtrol of the feet on the right side 

 while the left head was in command of 

 the left side. Just which head had con- 

 trol of the tail is a mystery that was 

 never solved. It was noticed that when 

 one head wanted to travel east and the 

 other west there would be a terrific 

 struggle which generally ended where 

 it started. 



Sometimes the left head would come 

 out alone, and while the feet on the 

 right side remained inactive the left 

 feet would struggle hard to move the 

 entire body away, and accomplish 

 nothing but a few circles in the water. 

 The same was true of the right side. 

 If the left head gazed from its left eye 

 at a tempting fly — from a turtle stand- 

 point — and the right head should gaze 

 from its right eye at a tender moth, 

 and both decided to seize its prospec- 

 tive prey at the same time, what would 

 happen? Suppose the right head want- 

 ed to go on a little "jag," while the 

 left head decided that the church was 

 the proper place for a good little turtle 

 to go to, what then would happen? 

 Would it be fair for the left head that 

 wanted to be good? 



Don't Kill Snakes and Toads. 



The French town authorities post 

 village bulletin boards, for public in- 

 struction. One of these reads "Hedge- 

 hog: live on mice, snails and wire- 

 worms — do not kill a hedgehog. Toad : 

 helps agriculture, killing twenty to 

 thirty insects every hour — do not kill 

 a toad. Cockchafer : deadly enemy to 

 the farmer; lays one hundred eggs at a 

 time — kill the cockchafer." It would 

 be a good idea for our own government 

 to post bulletins of this sort, instead of 

 printing so many for circulation. 



In the south most of the snakes are 

 of great value, and that is relatively 

 true everywhere. The blue racer, a 

 handsome fellow, is estimated to be 

 worth ten dollars a year to destroy mice 

 and gophers. The bull snake and gar- 

 ter snake destroy insects and rodents, 



