CHAPTEE VII. 



TORTOISES AND TURTLES. 



To many of us, the chief idea connected with turtles 

 is that they are used to make turtle- soup ; while in 

 regard to tortoises our acquaintance is often limited 

 to seeing a barrow-load of unfortunate specimens 

 hawked about the streets, or to an individual or two 

 kept in our own or a friend's garden, as a very un- 

 sociable kind of pet. We are also acquainted with 

 these creatures loj means of tortoise-shell, either in 

 the form of combs or various ornamental articles; 

 although the exact nature of this commodity which, 

 by the way, conies from turtles and not from tortoises 

 is frequently but very imperfectly known. Many 

 people, indeed, have more or less hazy ideas as to what 

 kind of animals tortoises and turtles really are. Thus, 

 according to Punch, railway companies were wont to 

 classify tortoises as insects ; and the writer well recol- 

 lects that during his undergraduate days his landlady 

 purchased an unfortunate tortoise to take the place of 

 a deceased hedgehog in the kitchen, for the purpose 

 of eating black-beetles, and was immensely astonished 

 when told that the tortoise was a vegetable feeder and 

 had no sort of kinship with the hedgehog. 



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