TERRAPINS. 109. 



hawksbill turtle and the preserved chicken-tortoise, 

 which have already been mentioned. The former 

 retains all its rich inottlings, although many years have 

 elapsed since I took it from a barrel at the Docks. 

 The latter has entirely lost its colouring. When the 

 little creature was alive the shields were olive-brown, 

 with a net-like pattern of a paler hue, and in the 

 middle of each was a pale ring edged with black, from 

 which diverged a number of lines towards the edges of 

 the shield. Now all this colouring has faded, and the 

 colour is dull, brown-black, with a few blacker lines on 

 each shield. 



It is easy to understand that the yellow stripes 

 upon the skin should fade away after death, but that 

 the colour of the horny plates should alter is as unex- 

 pected a fact as if black or brown human hair were to 

 turn white after it had been severed from the head. 



The Australian chelodine loves stagnant water in 

 preference to running streams, and feeds upon the 

 slow-paced fishes, the frogs, and similar creatures 

 which inhabit the same localities. 



The last of the tortoise water trespassers which 

 can be described in these pages is the Snapping Turtle, 

 as it is popularly called, its scientific name being 

 Trionyx ferox. The name is probably familiar to my 

 readers through the medium of the " Bon Gaultier " 

 legends, where " Slingsby, of the manly chest/' defied 

 and slew the ' ' snapping turtle of the West/' 



I very much regret that the clever illustrator of 

 this work did not draw the real snapping turtle instead 

 of a mere green turtle, which is a very harmless being. 

 He would have made a much more effective picture. 



