BOG BOGLES 



grown turtle before the white man ever 

 saw Ponkapog Pond. 



There were parallel ridges in the struc- 

 ture of his shell that seemed to show much 

 wear as if this turtle had carried weight 

 on his back. The Indians have a legend 

 that the world itself is held up on the back 

 of a great turtle. Very well; this is the 

 one. I saw the marks of its friction on 

 his great muddy black structure as I 

 looked him over, there in the middle of the 

 loneliest place in the bog. 



I might have taken him by that alligator 

 tail and swung his seventy or eighty 

 pounds into the boat, I suppose. Terrapin 

 is valuable, and the snapping turtle is own 

 cousin to the terrapin. I have a fancy, 

 though, that if he had got into the boat 

 I should have got out. No ordinary Pon- 

 kapog boat was likely to hold us both, and 



I wisely refrained. Nor did he molest me, 

 217 



