HISTORY AND HABITS OF THE TESTUDINATA. 
XXI 
toad are as perfect examples of creative wisdom, as the orang or the beaver, 
the bee or the ant. But even amongst the Testudinata, the vital powers are 
developed in very different degrees in the different forms. The Land Tortoises, 
even in the tropical climates in which they most abound, and the temperature 
of which is calculated to raise their sluggish powers to the greatest degree of 
activity compatible with their organization, are still the awkward, slow-moving 
beings to which so many opprobrious proverbs have been applied; and the 
utmost extent of improvement of which they are susceptible, is an almost 
ludicrous attempt at vivacity, which seems only to show how little external cir¬ 
cumstances can modify those habits which structure has limited and controlled. 
But amongst some of the Fresh-water forms, the carnivorous habits by which 
they are characterized require a rapidity and extent of movement widely dif¬ 
ferent from the contracted motions of the former group. Thus Chelydra ser¬ 
pentina , the Snapping Turtle as it is commonly called, a native of the lakes and 
rivers of South America, not only pursues its prey, which consists of fish and of 
young water fowl, with great velocity and vigour, but seizes it with a rapid and 
powerful movement of the neck, and a sudden snap of the jaws, sufficiently 
forcible, as I have myself seen, to cut asunder a small stick. The move¬ 
ments, indeed, of many of the fresh-water species, when pursuing their food, or 
escaping from danger, are characterized by considerable speed and power. 
The food of Tortoises varies according to their structure, and the situation 
to which that structure adapts them. The land tortoises generally feed on 
vegetable substances, preferring the succulent or milky plants of the natural 
order Compositae ; such at least is the case with those which I have observed 
in a state of comparative captivity. Thus the common tortoise of Europe, 
Testudo grceca, usually selects the lettuce, the dandelion, the milk-thistle, and 
other plants of this description : a specimen of T. pardalis, however, fed almost 
exclusively on grass, which it plucked by a sidelong movement of the head. 
On approaching a plant, the head is usually stretched out slowly towards it, 
and its fitness for food evidently determined by the smell. The mouth is then 
slowly opened, the head turned on one side, so as to take as large a portion of 
the leaf as possible into the mouth, which is then closed, and the morsel cut 
off between the horny edges of the upper and lower jaws, as if with shears. 
f 
