16 



ftguattc JLitt 



There is another species of snapping 

 turtle which is confined to Mexico and 

 Guatemala, while our United States spe- 

 cies is found as far south as Ecuador 

 in South America. These, however, are 

 the merest pygmies when we come to 

 compare them with our giant, the Alli- 

 gator Snapping Turtle (Macrochelys 

 lacertina), which may come to weigh as 

 much as 160 pounds, and which inhabits 

 the main rivers that empty into the Gulf 

 of Mexico from western Texas to sim- 

 ilar streams emptying into the Gulf of 

 Mexico in western Florida. It is 

 nowhere especially abundant, and I do 

 not recall having seen a single specimen 

 of it during the year and a half I spent 

 in the city of New Orleans. From per- 

 sonal observation, then, I can add noth- 

 ing to the history of this great reptile 

 beyond what has already been published. 

 I have, however, from time to time, 

 owned specimens of our common snap- 

 ping turtle during the past fifty-five years 

 or more, and kept them in captivity for 

 study. These I have usually captured 

 myself, having come across them in their 

 haunts in the slow-running, muddy 

 streams of southwestern Connecticut, 

 and in the marshy tracts of the southern 

 States. 



Specimens of this reptile may come to 

 weigh from 31 to 33 pounds, and have 

 a length of nearly 30 inches. A bite from 

 a big one is no trifling matter, for cases 

 are on record where a finger or a toe 

 has been bitten off by a large specimen, 

 while the Alligator Snapper has been 

 known to bite off a hand or a foot. 

 Marvelous, indeed, is the power of the 

 sharp, cutting jaws of either of these 

 species ; and one in good health has the 

 habit, when irritated, of sinking at its 

 enemy much as an angry snake does. 

 They capture the fish they feed upon in 

 the same manner, and a snapping turtle 



will conceal itself in the soft mud at the 

 bottom of the pond or stream where it 

 lives, thus taking hapless minnows and 

 other species that chance to swim over 

 it within striking distance. As given, 

 this chelonian stroke is of lightning rapid- 

 ity, so like a flash indeed that the eye 

 appreciates it with great difficulty. Snap- 

 pers invariably feed under water, and 

 many a young duck has been dragged 

 beneath that element, to be devoured by 

 one of these voracious reptiles. As a 

 matter of fact, a snapper will starve to 

 death should opportunity to feed under 

 water be denied it. This may be easily 

 demonstrated through experiment, but it 

 is a cruel thing to do. Through gentle- 

 ness and kindness, some good-tempered 

 specimens of our snapping turtle have 

 come to be very harmless pets, and will 

 feed out of the hand of the one accus- 

 tomed to giving them food beneath the 

 surface of the water in the tank where 

 they are kept. 



Years ago I often kept tiny little snap- 

 pers in one of my aquaria, and well do I 

 remember a specimen I had that was 

 not more than an inch in length, from the 

 back of which grew a long tassel of ele- 

 gant, green moss, fully twice the length 

 of the turtle. This moss streamed out 

 from behind it in a very attractive fash- 

 ion, as it swam the length of the aqua- 

 rium, wherein it lived at peace with other 

 young turtles of various species. 



Eggs of this turtle are spherical in 

 form, with tough, roughish, white shells, 

 the female laying some dozen of them to 

 the clutch. She often lays these at some 

 distance from the pond or stream in 

 which she lives, and she will plod over 

 the ground until she conies to a place of 

 her liking, when she will proceed to 

 worry a sizable excavation, into which 

 she settles down, depositing ecrg after 

 e^ until the clutch is complete. Then 



