Lake Maxinkuckee, Physical and Biological Survey 597 



with a slow, awkward, halting gait, often stopping, holding its 

 head well up as if listening or looking about. When traveling 

 about on the land, a great amount of mud may sometimes be seen 

 on the back. The back or carapace is always rough and more or 

 • less covered with mud, and there is often a heavy growth of fila- 

 mentous algse on the back, the alga being generally some species of 

 Chsetomorpha. 



The Snapper is a vicious brute. When attacked it neither re- 

 treats nor withdraws into his shell as most species do, but shows 

 fight at once, snapping viciously at any object held near it. It 

 will even leap forward toward its tormentor. When its jaws have 

 once closed on the enemy it holds on with dog-like persistence. 

 Dr. Hay mentions a curious belief with which the writers have been 

 familiar since boyhood days, viz., that a snapper, when a hold has 

 once been secured, will not let go until it thunders. Another ver- 

 sion of this superstition with which we are also familiar is that the 

 turtle will hold on until the sun goes down. They may frequently 

 be carried around for some time by the stick which they have 

 seized. 



These turtles are carnivorous and very voracious. Their food 

 consists of frogs, fishes, crawfishes, young waterbirds, and such 

 other small animals as they can capture. Several stomachs exam- 

 ined at the lake all contained opercula and fragments of Vivipara 

 contectoicles , indicating that this mollusk is the principal food of 

 this species of turtle at the lake during certain parts of the year. 

 That they sometimes capture young ducks and goslings, catching 

 them by the feet and pulling them under the water, seems well 

 authenticated. 



They evidently bury themselves in mud in swamps, frequently 

 some distance from the lake, and hibernate in winter. A single, 

 rather large individual was seen under the ice (Lost Lake, Dec. 

 18, 1900). It was close up against the ice, which was chopped 

 away, and the turtle, which was apparently too benumbed to i^ay 

 any attention to what was going on, was taken out. It was kept 

 alive over night in a coop and the temperature, which was some- 

 what higher than freezing (35°), kept the turtle in such a be- 

 numbed condition that it could hardly move by morning. 



These turtles begin coming out of the mud about the middle of 

 March, the first one having been seen March 19. From then they 

 came out one by one, and from that time on they continued to be 

 seen on land until through the nesting season. In the fall they 

 were to be seen about the lake as late as the end of September. 

 It is possible that the young turtles spend their first wintoi- in the 



