77 7.' 77 5 197 



Still another is the hawk-bill or tortoise-shell tun 

 mOchelys imbricata), the plates of whose shell is an artic 

 of commerce. The green-turtle of the Wee 

 from two hundred to three hundred pounds, and is usi 

 for making delicious soups and steaks, being caught at 

 night when laying . on sandy shores. All the foi 



going species have large, Hat. broad flippers or fin-like 

 limbs, while in tin- pond ami river turtl r are 



webbed ami the toes distinct. A very ferocious - is 



the common soft-shelled turtle (Aspi 

 whose shell is covered with a thick leathery skin. [1 is 

 carnivorous, voracious, living in shallow muddy water, 

 throwing itself forward upon small animals forming its 

 prey. The snapping- turtle (Chely i) some- 



times becomes five feel long; its ferocity is well-known; the 

 flesh makes an excellent soup. 



Tin- terrapins belong to the genus Pst the pretty 



painted turtle (Chrysemys pici is tommon in thi rn 



States, while the Vam - uttatus, or 1 tortoise, is 



black, spotted with orange. In the land tortoises the f< 

 are shorl and stumpy. The Te&tudo 1 dica of India 

 three feet in length. The -iv.it land tortoises of the Gala- 

 pagos Islands, the Mascarine [slands (Mauritius and Rod- 

 riguez), and also of the Aldabra Islands, lying northwi 

 of Madagascar, are in some cases colossal in size, the .-hells 

 being nearly two metres (six feet) in length. The fier 

 Mascarine species were contemporaries of the dodo and 

 solitaire, and are now extii 



The turtles lay the: in sand on th( - 



and river-. In the Middle and New England S - nearly 

 all the turtles lay their eggs on or abonl June 10th. the 

 ecu:* being hatched late in the summer. Turtles do not lay 

 estss until eleven to thirteen years old. 



The land tortoises, as probably all turtles, are long-In 

 and often reach a greal _ White, in his " \ itural His- 

 tory of Selborne," relates that one was kepi in a village till 

 it was supposed to be 100 \ - Id. 



