34 MUD TORTOISE. 



walks much quicker than the land tortoise, espe- 

 cially when on even ground. It grows for a long 

 time, and has been known to live more than 

 twenty-four years. The taste which it has for 

 small snails, and such kind of wingless insects 

 as frequent the neighbourhood of the waters it 

 inhabits, make it useful in a garden, which 

 it delivers from noxious animals, without doing 

 any mischief itself. Like other tortoises, it may 

 be rendered domestic, and may be kept in a bason 

 or receptacle of water, so contrived on the edges 

 as to give a ready egress to it when it wishes to 

 wander about for prey. Like the rest of the Am- 

 phibia, it can also support a long abstinence, 

 and will live for a considerable time, when de- 

 prived of parts seemingly the most essential to 

 life, and even of the head itself. The Count de 

 Cepede, adds, that though useful in gardens, it is 

 found to be a very troublesome inmate in fish- 

 ponds ; attacking and destroying the fish ; biting 

 them in such a manner that they become enfeebled 

 by loss of blood, and then dragging them to the 

 bottom and devouring them, leaving only the 

 bones and some of the cartilaginous parts of the 

 head, and sometimes the air-bladder also, which, 

 floating on the surface, give notice of the enemies 

 with which the pond is infested. 



From the above account it should seem that this 

 species is nearly allied to the T. Europaea, or 

 speckled tortoise, though differing in colour, c. 



