JUNE. 189 



out of a box about a foot high, several times ; but how he 

 did it I don't know ; for he does not seem at all adapted for 

 scaling walls or crawling up a perpendicular. I bored a hole 

 through the edge of his shell, and tied him with a string to 

 the fence of the field, thinking he would there enjoy him- 

 self; but one day, I found my poor tortoise dead, killed, as 

 I supposed, by the heat of the sun. Another that I caught, 

 I fastened in the same manner to a stake by the side of a 

 spring, giving him scope enough to immerse himself in it. I 

 often found him, with his head and fore parts exposed, and 

 the rest of his body in the mud, quite still, and apparently 

 enjoying his situation ; he lived in this way some time, and 

 at last broke the string, and I saw him no more. I have 

 never seen this species exceed the size of the one before us, 

 about six inches in length of the upper shell. I once 

 saw a tortoise taken in one of our streams, which was twelve 

 or fourteen inches long ; but I believe it was of a different 

 species : I had no opportunity of examining it. They lay 

 their eggs in the sand on the banks of the rivers, leaving 

 them to be hatched by the sun's warmth. Farwell informs 

 me that he has often been engaged in digging up the eggs of 

 tortoises from the depth of a foot and a half in sand, and 

 that once for a frolic, he boiled and ate some : they were 

 about the size of sparrows' eggs, from which he says, he 

 could not distinguish them in taste and appearance: they 

 were covered with a brittle shell. He has seen the young on 

 these warm sand-beaches, from the size of a dollar up- 

 wards. The eggs are to be found at about this season of the 

 year. 



C. Here are some Agarics which look like Mushrooms ; 

 are they so ? 



F. Yes ; these are true Mushrooms (Agaricus Cam- 

 pestris}, and very large ones : they are extremely scarce 

 here : I do not remember ever having seen the mushroom 



