TURTLES AND TORTOISES 37 



uals have a dull yellowish blotch in the center of each 

 shield. 



Most generally known is the dingy Gopher Tortoise, 

 Testudo polyphemuSj of the southeastern United States. 

 Rather flattened on the top, the shell of old tortoises is 

 perfectly smooth; on the young the shields are marked 

 with concentric grooves. Over the entire forelimb is 

 an armor of bony and protruding plates that assume 

 the formation of conical shields on the inner surface — 

 or, more properly, the inner margin, as the forelimbs 

 are much flattened for the purpose of digging. A fully 

 grown shell is twelve inches long — straight measurement, 

 with calipers. Possessing a shell this size a tortoise 

 weighs from eight to ten pounds. 



In dry, sandy, almost barren areas of the Southern 

 States, burrows of the Gopher Tortoise may be found on 

 all sides. The writer observed many in open sandy 

 country, plentifully sprinkled with a growth of scrub 

 oaks. Over these wastes, during the middle of the day, 

 the heat of the sun was so intense that the writer's horse 

 showed marked signs of distress. No tortoises were seen 

 at such times, though tracks in the sand were numerous. 

 Such could be traced a considerable distance from a bur- 

 row, then back again — sometimes into another burrow. 

 The burrows were at intervals of about twenty-five feet 

 apart. They could be detected from a considerable dis- 

 tance by the mound of sand thrown out by the animal. 

 As a rule the shafts were sharply oblique for a yard or 

 slightly more, when they assumed a more gentle slope. 

 Each was peculiar in being dug in the same outline as 

 a transverse section of the animal's shell. Burrows of 

 young tortoises were precisely like those of the old ones 

 in regard to the outline and the little mounds of scooped- 



