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*THE STORY OF THE TORTOISE. 
known as terrapin, but other species are also used. The best terrapins go by 
the name of ‘‘diamond-backs,” and do not generally exceed some seven inches 
in length, although they may rarely measure as much as ten inches, but all 
terrapin of larger dimensions belong to the inferior kinds, ordinarily desig¬ 
nated “sliders.” Terrapin are caught all the way from Savannah and 
Charleston to the Patapsco River at Baltimore, but the genuine diamond- 
back belongs only to the Upper Chesapeake and its tributaries. The 
majority of the sliders are brought to Baltimore from the James River. The 
terrapin-catchers make from five to twenty dollars per week, and they find 
the reptile, or “bird,” -as the bon vivant calls it, by probing the mud in the 
shallows with sticks. The terrapin is dormant, and when found is easily 
secured. A four-pound terrapin taken about September 15th will exist 
prosperously in a dark, cool place, without food or drink, until April 15th, 
and (the dealers say) will gain two ounces in weight. After that time it gets 
lively and active, and will take hold of a finger with great effusion and 
effectiveness. The male terrapin is known as a “bull,” and the female as 
a “cow.” The latter is much more highly prized, and generally contains 
about thirty eggs. No dish of terrapin is thought complete without being 
garnished with these. 
There is a tortoise found in the desert wastes of California and Arizona 
which has the same power to carry a supply of water as the camel; for, if one 
of these animals is killed, it is generally found to have quite a store of water 
in a bag of membrane which is fastened to the inner side of the shell, and 
which evidently answers exactly the same purpose as the water-cells of the 
camel’s stomach. So large is this supply, that, if a man were dying of thirst 
in the desert, and could kill one of these tortoises, he would obtain quite 
enough water to last him for a couple of days at least, and so would save 
his own life by killing the tortoise, just as many lives have been saved by 
the death of a camel. If it were not for these cisterns, so to speak, which 
the tortoise carries in its body, it could never live in the districts in which it 
is found, for the streams and pools are so far from one another that the slow- 
moving animal might travel for months, and yet never find a chance of 
drinking. It is thought that its water-supply is procured from a kind of 
plant which grows in the desert, and which, when open, is found to have 
some little quantity of water inside it. 
These tortoises are much esteemed as food; and in order to see whether 
they are sufficiently fat to be killed, the inhabitants are accustomed to make 
a slit beneath the tail, through which the interior of the body could be seen. 
