STARVING TORTOISES. 119 



One day I saw on a shelf in a village shop a 

 handsomely marked tortoise-shell, which I rather 

 desired to purchase for my museum. Upon 

 inquiry I found it had been bought for a few 

 shillings from a man who v/as going through the 

 village with a truck-load of these poor creatures 

 for sale. The shopkeeper knew nothing about the 

 requirements of his new acquisition, and thought it 

 would be quite happy in the water-butt, where he 

 placed it for the night. It being a land -tortoise, it 

 was of course found dead in the morning one of 

 the many victims of well intentioned ignorance. 

 Those who sell tortoises in the streets know 

 nothing about their habits, they only want to get 

 rid of their stock as quickly as possible. The 

 purchasers may never even have seen a tortoise 

 before, and have not, as a rule, the vaguest idea of 

 how it should be treated, so that the unfortunate 

 creatures are almost sure sooner or later to perish 

 miserably of mismanagement and starvation. 



They are entirely vegetable feeders, so that 

 the idea that a tortoise will clear the kitchen of 

 black-beetles is an absurd fiction, though it is, I 

 believe, urged by street sellers of tortoises as an 



