154 LIVING CREATURES. 



With pallid face he turned away, and hurried home 

 in the gathered twilight, nor stopped until he reached 

 the cheerful room in which his mother sat sewing and 

 his father reading. 



That boy has long been a man, but the years that 

 have passed have by no means worn away the remem- 

 brance of this scene, or the impressions it left on his 

 mind. And on that memorable evening John took 

 his first lesson in kindness toward dumb animals. 



35. THE BOX-TORTOISE AND ITS KIN. 



THE tortoise, or turtle, is appropriately called "an 

 animal in a box." It is an animal with a backbone; 

 and a most singular specimen of the backboned or 

 vertebrate animals it is. Insects, as we saw, have 

 their skeletons on the outside, and their soft parts 

 flesh and so forth inside. The backboned animal, in 

 nearly all cases, has its skeleton of bone within, and 

 its soft parts without. But here is an animal that has 

 a bony skeleton both inside and outside. 



The inside bones of the turtle grow through the 

 flesh and spread over the body above and below, mak- 

 ing a box with holes for the head and the legs to pass 

 out and in. This shell is covered with horny plates, 

 which, when taken from a particular kind of sea-turtle, 

 are the tortoise-shell of which combs and match-boxes 



