114 



Turtles are often captured by shooting, and one of the tests of 

 marksmanship, especially along the tributaries of the Ohio Eiver, 

 is to shoot a turtle in the head and render it immediately insensible, 

 so that it will not move from the spot where it was when shot. The 

 Leather-back Turtles, which are much prized for food, are thus shot 

 by marksmen and often remain on the rocks or logs where they 

 were perched at the time of shooting. It is then an easy matter 

 for the hunter to go to the rock and remove the insensible prey. 

 We well remember having seen a Soft-shelled or Leather-backed 

 Turtle when' floating in deep water in a stream, shot in the head 

 by a marksman and killed so suddenly that it did not have an oppor- 

 tunity to expel the air from its lungs to let it sink. Its head merely 

 dropped and the body continued to float until boys swam out to it, 

 placed their hands under it and brought it to shore, when it com- 

 menced floundering, which is merely the reflex action of the nerres 

 immediately connected with the twitching muscles but not by any 

 brain activity. 



When the head of a turtle is chopped off or the neck is severed, 

 the animal is killed as instantly as is a chicken or any other creature 

 killed by the same process, although the ganglionic or reflex ner- 

 vous action may continue for some hours or even days. Thus when 

 persons kill turtles by shooting in the head or by decapitation they 

 may have the satisfaction of knowing that the creatures are not 

 alive though they may be twitching and jerking, showing that the 

 muscles are yet active. There is, of course, no sensation or pain 

 after the nerve connection with the brain is severed. 



The chief commercial species at one" time was the Diamond-back, 

 but as this is confined to the salt marshes along the seashore, and 

 has become very rare in Pennsylvania, it no longer plays an import- 

 ant part as an item of food. The next best turtle as food is doubt- 

 less the Common Soft Shell Turtle, found in the western part of 

 the State, in the tributaries of the Ohio river; but this also is rare, 

 and while most of our smaller turtles are edible, we are to depend 

 for flesh and soup mostly upon the well known Snapping Turtle. 



It is supposed that all our species of turtles are edible excepting 

 those which at once give off such bad odors as to be very offensive, 

 and also the Box Turtle. During the coal miners' strike of 1902, 

 in the vicinity of Scranton, many miners roamed over the hills and 

 captured and ate turtles and Avere made sick thereby. It is prob- 

 able that these were the Box Turtles, and this is an evidence that 

 the flesh of this species is, under some circumstances, unfit for 

 human food.* It is not generally regarded as edible and this gen- 

 eral supposition is doubtless correct. 



•The flesh may have been rendered temporarily poisonous to man through the Box Turtle 

 havlnfr eaten toad stools, of which it Is fond, but which do not Injure the animal. 



