66 C0PE1A 



the speed that the more distant ones were traveling. 

 It may not be an uncommon fact that the Box Tor- 

 toise hurry, but was new to me, for these outsiders 

 were moving on at the gait of a fast walk. This was 

 a gathering of tortoises that I have never witnessed 

 before or since. 



Cistudo also frequently enters salt water near 

 Orient. Lying between a sandy cedar-grown beach 

 and the mainland of Orient is a bay one mile wide. 

 I have on several occasions found these turtles mid- 

 way across, always swimming leisurely toward the 

 mainland. It seems evident that they enter the water 

 of their own free will, as the beach to the south is flat 

 and no creeks running out. 



While off on the fishing ledges on the sound I 

 have on two occasions seen this species more than half 

 a mile from land. Although both these specimens 

 were swimming toward the Orient hills to the south, 

 they were being carried rapidly east or west with the 

 strongly flowing tide. It is a question where these 

 specimens came from, whether from the nearest inlet 

 fifteen miles west, or the New England rivers. It is 

 improbable that they entered the water near Orient. 



The record flood tide of December, 1909, washed 

 over a portion of the beach south of the bay that had 

 not been inundated in about fifty years. Taking ob- 

 servation there a few days after the water had re- 

 ceded — which overflowed for one tide only — I found 

 four of these turtles that had left their hibernation 

 burrows and frozen to death. The flood ebbed off in 

 the afternoon and that night it became severely cold. 

 The salt water coming in from the ocean at that time, 

 early in the winter, was warm. In every case the 

 animal was not over four feet from the burrow. I 

 was interested to notice that the holes were only deep 

 enough to slightly cover the shell with sand. 



Whether this species' preference for eating a 

 certain mushroom is well known I am not aware. In 

 this section the Russula obscura is devoured almost 



