230 nature's teachings. 



edge of its shell, passing one end of a string through it, and 

 fastening the other to a peg driven into the ground. At first, 

 I tied the string to a brick, but the Tortoise was so strong that 

 it dragged the brick about the garden, leaving reminiscences of 

 its progress in the channels which it had cut through all kinds 

 of vegetation with its scissor-like jaws. 



The reader, in comparing the illustration of the Turtle-jaws 

 with that of the Shears, will see at once how exact is the 

 analogy between the two. The sharp-edged jaws correspond 

 with the blades of the shears, the joint at the skull corresponds 

 with the pivot of the shears, and the muscles which move the 



JAWS OF TURTLE. 



jaws, but which could not be shown in the present illustration, 

 are the prototypes of the handles. 



In some of these creatures, especially those which are car- 

 nivorous, the power of the jaw is tremendous. One of them, 

 a Snapping Turtle, has been tnown to bite off several fingers 

 of a man's hand as easily as if they had been carrots. Some 

 years ago I kept some Chicken Tortoises alive, and was much 

 struck with the enormous proportionate power of their jaws. 



They were quite little creatures, only a few inches in length, 

 but their appetites were astonishing, and their mode of 

 satisfying their hunger remarkable. They were always 

 ravenous after meat, and had a curious way of seizing their 

 food in their mouths, placing one paw on either side of their 

 jaws, and then pushing the meat forcibly away, so as to cut 

 out a slice as large as their jaws. 



They were very good-tempered little things, but, small 

 though they were, I should have been very sorry to have one 

 of them take a bite at my finger by mistake. 



