LESSON XLI.
WITH A HOUSE ON HIS BACK.
And through the mossy wood-paths slowI see the silent tortoise go.The flecks of light, the shadows dim,The springing flowers, are naught to him;The dry pine needles are his bed,His house is always o’er his head,The fungus is his table spread.
And through the mossy wood-paths slowI see the silent tortoise go.The flecks of light, the shadows dim,The springing flowers, are naught to him;The dry pine needles are his bed,His house is always o’er his head,The fungus is his table spread.
And through the mossy wood-paths slowI see the silent tortoise go.The flecks of light, the shadows dim,The springing flowers, are naught to him;The dry pine needles are his bed,His house is always o’er his head,The fungus is his table spread.
And through the mossy wood-paths slow
I see the silent tortoise go.
The flecks of light, the shadows dim,
The springing flowers, are naught to him;
The dry pine needles are his bed,
His house is always o’er his head,
The fungus is his table spread.
Several years ago, walking one morning in a wood in Pennsylvania, I surprised a wood turtle or box tortoise, eatinghis breakfast. The season had been rainy and many varieties of large fungus had attained a prodigal growth. The woods were full of what are popularly called toad-stools; many of them were of the diameter of a tea-plate, and stood five or six inches high. As I walked through the wood I observed that many of these fungi had been gnawed off evenly, as if cut by a knife, leaving only the central pillar intact. What had done this? I soon discovered; for moving noiselessly over the mossy earth, I came to a little opening, where grew one of the finest of these toad-stools, and there was a wood turtle taking his breakfast.
The animal had already made one or two rounds of his plate, and was eating with praiseworthy deliberation. He would bite off a mouthful of toad-stool, chew it carefully until he had extracted all the juice, then open his mouth and drop out the chewed fibre, and take a fresh mouthful, not biting inward toward the stem, but breaking off the morsel next beside that which he had just eaten. He paced round and round the fungus as he took his bites, eating his plate like Æneas and the other Trojans,[75]and as the fungus decreased in regular circles, the circle of chewed fragments increased. In three-quarters of an hour he had eaten all the disk of the fungus to the stem part, and then he walked slowly off to look for another.
I found the crumbs that had fallen from his vanished table quite dry, nothing nutritious being left in them. Whyhe rejected the central part of the fungus and the stem, I could not imagine, but he left it in every instance. If he came upon a decayed or wormy portion of the toad-stool, he did not “bite round it,” but abandoned it altogether, and went for a fresh one.
At another turn in this wood, I found, under a pine tree, the shell and entire skeleton of a turtle, from which every particle of flesh and muscle was gone. The animal had died on his bed of pine needles, and his decaying body had been devoured by ants, which had left a delicately white skeleton. The little horny jaw had a very close resemblance to the beaks of certain birds.
The turtle is a four-legged reptile, with a short, stout, oval-shaped body, encased in a bony frame or box, from which the animal is able to protrude its head, legs, and tail, and into which it can withdraw them at pleasure. In different varieties of turtle, the size and shape of the box-like covering varies. The box tortoise can retire into its shell and close the under part into a groove of the upper edge, and thus form for itself an impregnable retreat; but there are varieties only partly encased by the shell, which cannot bring their heads and feet under cover.
The turtle wanders about with its house on its back as the snail does, and against its enemies it can close its doors and be emphatically “not at home.” Turtles have keen sight and hearing; they have no teeth, the jaws being simply cased in horn, like those of birds. Many of them are capable of making loud sounds.
Turtles lay eggs which are buried in earth or sand, andleft to themselves to hatch. The sea turtle is the largest variety, and will sometimes lay as many as two hundred eggs in a single heap. Sea turtles weighing a thousand pounds have been caught in tropical lands. Turtles of five or six hundred pounds weight have been captured on the United States coast.
In the four species of marine turtles, the feet are flat and fin-shaped. In one the shell is rather leathery than horny. Some of these marine turtles are carnivorous, living on fish, mollusks, and crustaceans; others are strictly vegetarian, feeding only on roots and various sea-weeds. The flesh of some of the sea turtles is rich and delicious, and a favorite and costly article of food; but of some others the flesh is coarse and strongly flavored, so as to be quite uneatable. The eggs are always sweet, good, and wholesome food. The shell of the sea turtle is a valuable article of commerce, boxes, cases, handles for knives, jewelry and other delicate ornamental things being made from it; it is susceptible of a high polish, which brings out clearly its rich brown and golden shades and markings.
Next to the marine turtles, come the fresh-water or river turtles. These eat both animal and vegetable food. They enjoy lying in a bed of mud, their heads lifted above the surface of the stagnant water, their long necks moving snake-like to and fro as they take mouthfuls of air. The fresh-water turtles are generally gregarious in their habits, large numbers of them being found together. They are fond of lying in the sun on logs or banks, near the water, into which they promptly slide at the first hint of danger. They are timid creatures, but if caught will snap and bite furiously.
Salt and fresh water terrapins are a variety of turtle. Some scientists distinguish the turtle from the tortoise thus: the turtle is a marine animal, does not hibernate, cannot draw its head and feet inside its shell. The tortoise never goes to sea; can draw itself entirely within its shell, though only the box tortoise can close the shell fast when so withdrawn, and finally, the tortoise hibernates. Some of the best and latest writers on the subject call all these animals turtles, giving the name tortoise to the box tortoise of the wood.
Clumsy as turtles appear in their box-like covering, they can walk rapidly on land, are climbers of some distinction, and all of them can swim. The head, neck, and legs of a turtle are of a uniform color,—bronze, blackish green, or deep brown. The shells or boxes are beautifully marked, glossy, ribbed, ridged, or carved, and made up of closely united many-sided plates, fitted upon a thickened, lighter-colored, uniform plate. This shell is not brittle and lime-like, as the shells of mollusks, but is more like horn.
In general, the shell or flat covering of the under part of the body is of a lighter color than the upper case, being light brown, yellow, or cream color, with yellow lines dividing the plates, and bordering bands of red, yellow, or purple. The upper shell is usually of a very dark color, marked and lined with darker and lighter tints, and often with a bevelled yellow edge.
The painted turtle receives its name from the beauty of its many-colored shell. The spotted turtle, often called the wood turtle, is distinguished by fine yellow spots sprinkled over its black back. The turtle which I saw feasting on thefungus was the common box tortoise. This box tortoise prefers dry woods, and dislikes the water. It is a long-lived creature. Some specimens have been known to live over a hundred years. A box tortoise that I had, ate meat, insects, and bread and milk from my hand, but if I put berries in its mouth it wiped them out with its front foot used hand-wise, in a very funny way. When it wanted to get away from the balcony, it crawled along the edge looking over, its neck outstretched; when it seemed to decide to go over it suddenly drew itself close into its shell, and making some quick jerk while quite shut up, over it went, came down safe in the grass, and walked away. I watched it do that many times and was never quite sure how it flung itself “overboard” after it was safely shut up.
The snapping turtle is a common variety. It has a box or shell too small to close over it and hide it completely. To make up for this lack, it has a bold and hasty temper, and snaps vigorously when disturbed.
The gopher is the turtle of the southern pine countries. It is a large, strong animal, with a shell fifteen inches long. These gopher turtles live in troops, a number of families digging their dens or burrows near together. The entrance to the den is about four feet long and expands into a spacious room. In each burrow lives a single pair of gophers. Gophers’ eggs are as large as pigeons’ eggs, and the eggs and flesh are prized by the negroes as food. By day gophers stay at home, by night they wander out and devour yams, melons, corn, and other garden produce. They dislike wet, and go indoors when it rains.
A near relative of the gopher is found in Europe, and is often kept about the house for a pet. If it can find its way into a garden in the autumn it digs a hole and hibernates, coming forth in the spring. A friend of mine in London had one of these animals which lived in the kitchen. It was fond of creeping into the fire-place and getting under the grate, where it would lie until the hot coals and ashes dropped upon its back and burnt its shell. When winter came this little animal wanted to take its long sleep, and dug so persistently into boxes, baskets, drawers, and closets that finally a box of earth was given to it, into which it worked its way until out of sight, and there stayed until April. It ate potatoes, carrots, turnips, and bread and milk, which it specially liked.
FOOTNOTES:[75]The harpies, we are told, frightened Æneas by saying he would be so hungry that he would eat his plate. But as the Trojans at one of their meals used big cakes of bread for plates, the prophecy was harmlessly fulfilled.
[75]The harpies, we are told, frightened Æneas by saying he would be so hungry that he would eat his plate. But as the Trojans at one of their meals used big cakes of bread for plates, the prophecy was harmlessly fulfilled.
[75]The harpies, we are told, frightened Æneas by saying he would be so hungry that he would eat his plate. But as the Trojans at one of their meals used big cakes of bread for plates, the prophecy was harmlessly fulfilled.