y^6 Canvas -Back and Terrapin. 



it as anything but very positive meat. It is certainly quite as much 

 meat as a broiled leg of a frog. Terrapins are worth from $25 to 

 $36 a dozen during the season. A dozen terrapins consists of twelve 

 " diamond-backs," no one of which measures less than seven inches in 

 length on the under shell. A seven-inch terrapin is called a " count- 



POSTHUMOUS MIGRATION. 



terrapin," and anything smaller is not counted. The largest known, 

 do not exceed ten inches in length and eight pounds in weight ; 

 and such are extremely rare. The seven-inch terrapin averages 

 four pounds in weight. " Sliders," the common river turtles of 

 almost all the rivers of the region, grow to a much larger size. 

 They sell at from $6 to $9 a dozen, and are largely used by hotels 

 and restaurants, where they are retailed at $1 and $1.25 a dish as 

 genuine diamond-back terrapin. It is next to impossible to get a 

 genuine dish of terrapin at a public house. The one or two people 

 controlling the trade say they sell almost exclusively for private 

 tables. 



Terrapin are caught all the way from Savannah and Charleston 

 to the Patapsco River, at Baltimore, but the genuine diamond-back 

 belongs only to the upper Chesapeake and its tributaries. The 

 majority of the sliders are brought to Baltimore from the James 

 River. The terrapin-catchers make from $5 to $50 per week, and 

 they find the reptile, or "bird," as the bon vivant calls it, by probing 

 the mud in the shallows with sticks. The terrapin is dormant, and 



