TURTLE EGGS FOR AGASSIZ 41 



manner, and the gait at which she moved ; for 

 there was method in it and fixed purpose. On she 

 came, shuffling over the sand toward the higher 

 open fields, with a hurried, determined see-saw 

 that was taking her somewhere in particular, and 

 that was bound to get her there on time. 



44 1 held my breath. Had she been a dinosau- 

 rian making Mesozoic footprints, I could not 

 have been more fearful. For footprints in the 

 Mesozoic mud, or in the sands of time, were as 

 nothing to me when compared with fresh turtle 

 eggs in the sands of this pond. 



44 But over the strip of sand, without a stop, she 

 paddled, and up a narrow cow-path into the high 

 grass along a fence. Then up the narrow cow- 

 path, on all fours, just like another turtle, I pad- 

 dled, and into the high wet grass along the fence. 



44 1 kept well within sound of her, for she moved 

 recklessly, leaving a trail of flattened grass a foot 

 and a half wide. I wanted to stand up, — and I 

 don't believe I could have turned her back with 

 a rail, — but I was afraid if she saw me that she 

 might return indefinitely to the pond ; so on I 

 went, flat to the ground, squeezing through the 

 lower rails of the fence, as if the field beyond were 



