IX TESTUDINIDAE 35 5 



the spring is well advanced. During the pairing season, on warm 

 spring nights, they emit short piping sonnds, and when they 

 have found each otlier, the couple swim about together. The 

 white, hard-shelled, long, oval eggs, averaging 25 to 15 nmi., 

 and about ten in number, are laid on land. This is a very 

 laborious and curious business. The female having selected a 

 suitable spot, not loose sand, but rather hard soil free from grass 

 and other dense vegetation, prepares the ground by moistening it 

 from the bladder and the anal water-sacs. Then it stiffens the 

 tail and bores a hole with it, moving the tail but not the body. The 

 hind-limbs then scoop out the hole, the broad feet moving alternately 

 and liea})ing up the soil on the side, until the hole is about five 

 inches deep, that is as far as the hind legs will reach. The eggs 

 are laid at the bottom in one layer, divided and distributed by 

 the feet. Lastly, the soil is put in again, and the tortoise, by 

 repeatedly raising its body and falling down, stamps the soil firm 

 and flat, roughens the surface a little with its claws, and leaves 

 the nest to its fate. Nothing but an accident leads to its dis- 

 covery. The young are hatched, according to locality and the 

 kind of season, either in the same autumn or not until the next 

 spring. Eggs laid in a garden at Kieff, in Eussia, were hatched 

 eleven months later. This implies hibernation of the embryo 

 within the egg, and this is probably the usual course of events, 

 resembling the conditions of the development of Sphenodon (cf. 

 p. 299). The pretty little creatures, scarcely larger than a shilling- 

 piece, are exceedingly difficult to rear. They require a tank 

 with green vegetation, stones to bask on and to hide under, and 

 also dry ground and moss for a change. They eat flies, tiny 

 worms, tadpoles, etc., greedily enough, l)ut for some occult 

 reasons they do less well than many another kind of water- 

 tortoise. Miss Durham has, however, succeeded in rearing one, 

 which is now in its fourth year ; the shell is 2 inches long, 

 and each shield shows three annual rings around the areola. 

 This specimen spent the winters in an unheated room under moss, 

 not in the water. 



E. Uandingi, the North American species, has a more elongated 

 and decidedly higher carapace than its smaller European relation. 

 The carapace is dull black with many pale yellowisli spots ; the 

 plastron is yellow, with a large dark patch on the outer and hinder 

 corner of each shield. The head is dark brown above, bright 



