260 RAMBLES ABOUT HOME. 



td) which emit a piping note ; and in Chelonia 

 mydas, whose voice resembles somewhat a quaint, low 

 bark; I am inclined to believe that all of them have, 

 more or less, the faculty of emitting distinct sounds" 

 (loc. cit., p. 284). It is not to be wondered at that our 

 turtles should have voices, for they are by no means such 

 sluggish, indolent creatures as is supposed by those who 

 have only observed them indifferently or from afar off. 

 I have frequently seen them get up a " square fight " over 

 some delicate morsel, as a dead fish or drowned squirrel ; 

 and again, while peering over the side of my boat into the 

 clear depths below, I have watched the spotted turtles, 

 two and three together, go through a variety of erratic 

 movements, strongly suggestive of play. Even the soli- 

 tary land-tortoises, when they meet, will gently touch 

 their noses and go through other movements indicative 

 of the exchange of ideas. Indeed, I have never seen any 

 animal as high in the scale of development as fishes, that 

 did not possess some means of communicating its ideas 

 to its fellows. In no other way can many of the acts of 

 these animals be explained. 



To return to the turtles. In May, 1881, my first 

 specimen of Muhlenberg turtle was kept in a small vessel 

 of water, for several days, in a darkened room. Twice, 

 while in the room, I heard it utter a shrill note, which 

 may be represented by the syllables pree-eak, twice or 

 thrice repeated ; the last time less distinctly than the 

 previous utterances. To make it the more certain that 

 the first utterance was not wrongly attributed to the tur- 

 tle, I caused a ray of light to be thrown upon the vessel 

 containing the animal, and I remained in the dark, but 

 quite near at hand. I could plainly see every movement 

 of the turtle, but do not think I was seen by it. After 

 the, lapse of half an hour after the first utterance heard 9 I 



