130
Concord, Mass.
1898.
June 12
(No 2)
  All day long the wooded slope of Ball's Hill
next the river was alive with Turtles on their
way from or to the water. I saw three species
the Painted Tortoise being the most common, the 
Small Snapping Turtle next in numbers while of the 
Sand Tortoise I found but one. I could hear many
that I could not see making a continuous, low 
rustling among the dried leaves.
  At about 4 P.M. I came on a large Painted
Tortoise laying her eggs in an opening by the side of a
foot path on the crest of the ridge above the cabin.
She had dug a round hole five or six inches drop 
and about an inch in diameter in hard gravel[l]y
soil. At least one egg (and probably more) lay in the
bottom of the hole when we discovered her. Within the
next fifteen minutes we saw her lay seven eggs at
intervals varying from one to three minutes. During
this period she stood with her arms directly over the
hole. The eggs exuded with scarcely a perceptible
effort. They all had a long deep gro[o]ve on one side
as if they had been indented by the pressure of a
knife blade held parallel with the long axis of the
egg. All of them dropped squarely in the hole and
each as soon as it fell was pushed down firmly &
rather forcibly by the Turtle's hind feet nothing whatever
being put between them. The presence of four people
crouched in a circle around the Turtle and talking
& [??]ughing loudly did not interfere in the least
with the animal's business which was evidently too
pressing to be interrupted by such a trifle. When
we crowded her too closely she would simply draw