Rural School Leaflet 



1243 



alarmed seeks protection in the grassy shallow water of its environment. 

 Its food may be cither animal or vegetable matter. Of its breeding 

 habits there is a single record of a female in captivity laying her eggs 

 between July 20 and August 5. 



(d) The spotted ttn^tle is second 

 to the painted turtle in abun- 

 dance in New York State. Its 

 carapace is black, with round 

 orange sjjots, which are also on 

 the head, and it is just as flat 

 as the painted turtle. The plas- -^''"'"/e spotted turtle, one-fourth milural size 



tron may be black, or yellow or orange-red heavily blotched with 

 black. The fleshy parts are orange and black, and the upper jaw 

 is slightly notched. The spotted turtle's shell is from four and one-half 

 to five inches long ■ — slightly smaller than that of the painted turtle. 

 The spotted turtle ranges from New England to Indiana and North 

 Carolina. It appears from hibernation in the spring about the last of 

 March or the first of AjdHI, and frequents ponds, swamps, inlets, and 

 small waterholes. It seems to prefer swampy places more than most 

 other species, and is common in marly ponds and sphagnum moss swamps, 

 and may be found in some of the most transient pools. It is fond of 

 basking with others of its kind on logs or any rest above the water, and 

 hurriedly falls into the water at the approach of a person. Like the 

 painted turtle it will live on animal and vegetable food, and is a scavenger. 

 It feeds mostly on fish, frogs, tadpoles, insects, and worms. In the middle 

 of June the female digs a hole in the muck or the dirt of swamps or wet 

 woods, and lays a few eggs. These are elliptical, about one and one- fourth 

 inches long, and three-fourths of an inch in diameter. As in the case 

 of the painted turtles, the young 

 hatch in August or September. 



(e) The wood turtle, called 

 also wood terrapin and wood 

 tortoivSe, is much larger than the 

 Muhlenberg's turtle, its shell 

 reaching a length of seven or 

 eight inches. The carapace is 

 more or less keeled, or ridged 

 down the middle and has Female spotted turtle, one-fourth natural size 



prominent raised ridges, one within the other, on each plate. These 

 rough plates also have yellowish or brownish radiating lines. The 

 plastron is prominently notched behind like that of the Muhlenberg's 

 turtle, and each plate is yellow with a prominent black blotch on the 



