TURTLE EGGS FOR AGASSIZ 33 



It would seem, naturally, that there could be 

 nothing unusual or interesting about the getting 

 of turtle eggs when you want them. Nothing at 

 all, if you should chance to want the eggs as you 

 chance to find them. So with anything else, 

 good copper stock, for instance, if you should 

 chance to want it, and should chance to be along 

 when they chance to be giving it away. But if 

 you want copper stock, say of C & H quality, 

 when you want it, and are bound to have it, then 

 you must command more than a college profes- 

 sor's salary. And likewise, precisely, when it is 

 turtle eggs that you are bound to have. 



Agassiz wanted those turtle eggs when he 

 wanted them not a minute over three hours 

 from the minute they were laid. Yet even that 

 does not seem exacting, hardly more difficult 

 than the getting of hen eggs only three hours old. 

 Just so, provided the professor could have had 

 his private turtle-coop in Harvard Yard ; and pro- 

 vided he could have made his turtles lay. But 

 turtles will not respond, like hens, to meat-scraps 

 and the warm mash. The professor's problem was 

 not to get from a mud turtle's nest in the back 

 yard to the table in the laboratory ; but to get 



