102 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
discontent. Have the minnows played thus all 
winter ? The equisetum at the bottom has 
freshly grown several inches. Then should I 
not have given the precedence on the other page 
to this and some other water plants ? I suspect 
that I should, and the flags appear to be start¬ 
ing. I am surprised to find on the rail a young 
tortoise ItV inches long in the shell, which has 
crawled out to sun or perchance is on its way to 
the water. I think it must be the Emys gut¬ 
tata, for there is a large and distinct yellow spot 
on each dorsal and lateral plate, and the third 
dorsal plate is hexagonal and not quadrangular 
as that of the Emys picta is described as being, 
though in my specimen I can’t make it out to 
be so. Yet the edges of the plates are prom¬ 
inent as described in the Emys sculpta, which, 
but for the spots, two yellow spots on each side 
of the hind head, and one fainter on the top of 
the head, I should take it to be. It is about 
seven eighths of an inch wide, very inactive. 
When was it hatched and where ? 
What is the theory of these sudden pitches of 
deep shelving places in the sandy bottom of the 
brook. It is very interesting to walk along such 
a brook as this in the midst of the meadow, 
which you can better do now before the frost is 
quite out of the sod, and gaze into the deep 
holes in its irregular bottom and the dark gulfs 
