418 TERRAPINS. 
It is one of the vegetable feeders, eating various plants, and being very 
fond of lettuce leaves, which it crops in a very curious manner, biting them 
off sharply when fresh and crisp, but dragging them asunder when stringy, 
by putting the fore-feet upon them, and pulling with the jaws. This Tortoise 
will drink milk, and does so by opening its mouth, scooping up the milk in 
its lower jaw as if with a spoon, and then raising its head to let the liquid run 
down its throat. 
One of these animals, which I kept for some time, displayed a remarkable 
capacity for climbing, and was very fond of mounting upon various articles 
of furniture, stools being its favourite resort. It revelled in warmth, and could 
not be kept away from the hearthrug, especially delighting to climb upona 
footstool that generally lay beside the fender. 
This Tortoise had a curious kind of voice, not unlike the mewing of a little 
kitten. The Common Tortoise is known to live to a great age. 
COMMON LAND TORTOISE.—(TZestudo Greca.) 
Another specimen, a very large one, has been in my possession for several 
years. At the end of antumn it burrows under a heap of leaf-mould, and 
waits there until the warm days of spring. It feeds mostly on grass, and eats 
its way in a line, leaving a groove of cut grass to mark its track. With the 
exception of strawberry eating, it does no harm in the garden. It has a most 
inexplicable objection to rain, of which not one drop can penetrate its shell ; 
and whenever a shower comes, it makes its way to an earth-bank, forces itself 
partly into the loose soil, and remains there with retracted head and limbs 
until the rain has ceased. 
WE now come to a group of Tortoises called TERRAPINS. 
These creatures are inhabitants of the water, and are mostly found in rivers. 
They are carnivorous in their diet, and take their food while in the water. 
They may be known by their flattened heads, covered with skin, sometimes 
