Reptiles Turtles 
The turtle is an animal with an ancestry that dates 
back to the time when strange monsters wandered 
over our earth,—times when a turtle without a shell 
would have soon been made into a dinner. The 
turtle’s shell has been such a protection that it has 
not needed to move swiftly, it therefore is a slow 
walker. The upper part of the shell is called the 
carapace, and the lower part the plastron. The 
carapace is grown fast to the turtle’s back-bone; it 
is made up of plates, and as the turtle grows, each 
plate increases in size around its edges; this shows 
very wellin the shell of the wood turtle, each ridge 
around a plate representing a year’s growth. 
Turtles are air-breathing creatures, and do not 
have gills like fish; they are obliged to come to the 
surface for air supply, but they can remain below 
water without breathing for hours at a time. The 
throbbing of the throat is a process of forcing air into 
the lungs. 
Turtles do not have teeth, but are provided with 
sharp-edged, horny beaks. All turtles hatch from 
eggs which are laid in the ground near the shores of 
ponds and streams. The eggs are white, and are 
round or oval; in some cases the eggshells are parch- 
ment-like, in others they are hard like the shells of 
birds’ eggs. 
The different species of common turtles have such 
different habits, that each has to be treated and fed 
in its own especial manner. 
THE SNAPPING TURTLE 
This is rather a vicious pet, for it extends its neck 
to a length nearly equal to that of its shell, and strikes 
like a snake. The only way to lift a big snapper 
262 
