OCTOBER 111 



In lieu of larger game, old-i'asliiuned boys — - 

 perhaps those of today are like thereunto — were 

 content at times to ferret out crawfish — ' ' cray- 

 fish" — from their cylindrical, cavernous retreats 

 in muddy banks; and to some of the more sensi- 

 tive boys the frequent sight of crawfish corpses or 

 of the detached claws may have given hints of the 

 tragic struggle for existence. 



Charles Aldrich, in his picturesque account of 

 The Old Prairie Slough, describes the grayish- 

 white belts or other geometric designs about the 

 dried ponds and lake-beds, fashioned by thousands 

 of lifeless shells. Such exposed signs of life that 

 passed away before the plough came hitherward 

 give one a sense of the vastness of nature's plan. 

 Other records of life in remote periods the Iowa 

 boy read, after his boyish fashion, in the trilobites 

 of his geological excursion, and in the bones of the 

 mastodon that digging workmen uncovered in 

 ^'our village." 



To return a moment to the point of our depart- 

 ure. Many a Hawkeye lad — or lassie — has 

 doubtless had as temporary pet some individual 

 of some species of turtle ; but it takes patience and 

 a degree of skill to break records in most fields 

 of human activity. Who between the Mississippi 

 and the Missouri can truthfully relate a tale of tur- 

 tles equal to that so modestly told in The Natural 

 History of Selhornel That "old Sussex tortoise" 



