April, 1920 
FOREST AND STREAM 
187 
waters of our coast. The leather-back is 
an extreme adaption to pelagic life, with 
clawless flippers. It is remarkably active 
in the water, and is apparently an om- 
nivorous feeder. It is capable of making 
a vocal sound, which one hearer says is 
“of great volume, an indescribable kind 
of noise such as is heard sometimes at a 
menagerie.” Its flesh is inedible, and the 
leather-back has not been extensively 
hunted. Medium-sized specimens are not 
yet known, only very large and very small 
examples having been captured. 
The green turtle, which is so esteemed 
the world over for soup and steaks that 
it is in danger of extermination, derives 
its name from the color of its fatty tis- 
sue. 
All turtles appear to have a remark- 
able similarity of breeding habits. The 
green turtle, like its sea relatives and the 
freshwater species, crawls well above the 
line of high water, digs a hole in the 
sand, deposits her eggs, and then covers 
them and smooths the surface so as to 
leave scarcely a mark. The eggs of this 
turtle, however, may number two hun- 
dred, while those of some small species do 
no exceed three or four. The egg de- 
posits are never revisited, and the young 
turtles shift entirely for themselves. 
T HE snapping turtle, or torup, the 
first of the freshwater species in 
Dr. Babcock’s list, is a sullen, ag- 
gressive, ferocious turtle, attaining a 
length of as much as three feet and a 
weight of fifty pounds. It is a terrible 
enemy to young water fowl, and, like 
most of the water turtles, it can swallow 
food only when its head is under water. 
Formerly, snapping turtles were some- 
times kept in swill barrels by New Eng- 
land farmers, where they fattened like 
the lampreys in old Roman cisterns, and 
it is said, lost all of their natural musty 
odor. One such debauched turtle is al- 
leged to have reached 86 pounds in 
weight before it was served up to the ex- 
pectant family. 
The familiar painted turtle is probably 
the commonest species throughout New 
England and most of the northeastern 
United States. Rows of these turtles are 
often seen along rocks or logs in ponds, 
and, considering their few enemies, it is 
surprising that they should be as shy as 
they are. This species does not begin to 
lay until the eleventh year of its growth. 
T HE diamond-back, second only to the 
green turtle in epicurean favor, was 
formerly abundant along our sea- 
coast, but its numbers have been so re- 
duced that the Government has conducted 
extensive and successful experiments in 
artificial propagation of the species. The 
females, which measure up to 10 inches in 
length, are much larger than the males 
or “bulls,” and have a market value 
ranging up to $120.00 per dozen. Seven- 
inch females or “hens” are worth $60.00 
a dozen. The food of the diamond-back 
comprises crustaceans, mollusks, etc. The 
animals hibernate in mud under salt 
water. Dr. Babcock gives a full descrip- 
tion of the methods of breeding at Beau- 
fort, N. C., and states that in the U. S. 
Fish Commission pens the loss through 
From a colored drawing from life, by J. Henry Blake. 
The Box tortoise 
mortality amounts to only 4 or 5 per cent. 
The 5 to 12 eggs hatch in about six 
weeks under favorable temperatures, and 
the young commonly hibernate from the 
time they hatch (in August) until the 
following spring. If they are kept in a 
temperature of 70° F., however, they skip 
the hibernating period, begin to eat and 
grow at once, gaining about an inch in 
length during the first year. The young 
are excellent climbers, as are young spot- 
ted turtles, and can even surmount a 
rough board fence and so escape from 
their pens. 
Next to the painted turtle, the spotted 
turtle is probably our most familiar 
freshwater turtle. This species adds 
yellow spots on its black shell as it ages, 
and, strangely enough, it usually has 
more spots on the left than on the right 
side. It lays from two to four c~gs, 
feeds mostly on insects, and is a gentle, 
inoffensive species. 
The wood tortoise has a rough, sculp- 
tured carapace. It is a generally north- 
ern form, and is fairly common in moun- 
tainous regions, such as the Catskills. In 
its habits it is on the borderline between 
the aquatic turtles and the land-going 
tortoises, but it mates in the water j in 
captivity it will adapt itself to either a 
terrestrial or an aquatic life. Its mating 
season occurs about the first of October, 
and during this period it is known to 
utter a subdued whistle. The wood tor- 
toise is a gentle species which can be 
easily tamed, after which it will eat from 
the hand. It is an omnivorous feeder, 
but has a special fondness for berries 
and other vegetable food. New York 
State protects this species, and the box 
tortoise, by statute. 
The well-known box tortoise is a thor- 
ough-going landsman except at rare in- 
tervals, and yet it is undoubtedly more 
closely related to the water turtles than 
to the group of out and out land tor- 
toises known as Testudinata. It is an 
example of an animal which has become 
so specialized for a new mode of life 
that one has to search into its internal 
anatomy for tell-tale traces of its water- 
living ancestors. 
The box tortoise is very abundant in 
sandy, coastal regions such as Cape Cod, 
Long Island, and parts of New Jersey. 
There is much evidence to show that in- 
dividual tortoises never wander far from 
the region of their nativity. The box tor- 
toise is the only one of our turtles which 
mates on the land. Males differ from 
females in having concave plastrons and 
red eyes. The eggs, numbering from 
three to eight, depending upon the size 
of the mother, are often laid in culti- 
vated fields. The box tortoise will eat 
almost any kind of food, animal or veg- 
etable, but it is particularly fond of 
mushrooms and berries. 
The spiny soft-shelled turtle is a per- 
sistently aquatic species, which has a 
fish - like, supplementary, sub - surface 
breathing apparatus in its throat. By 
means of this it can take oxygen from 
the water, hence it is not entirely de- 
pendent upon aerial breathing, although 
it has well developed lungs. 
TRACKS 
T HE photograph in the March num- 
ber is of the tracks of a Turkey 
Buzzard. The claw marks show it 
to have been made by a bird of prey, but 
it is weaker, more crow-like than would 
be the track of a hawk or eagle. 
The footprints of bob-white and ruffed 
grouse resemble those of the domestic 
pigeon. The crow, which feeds on the 
ground, is a walker, but it has the nar- 
row foot-print of a tree-perchinz bird. 
J. T. N. 
