Snapping turtle

“ When the Mud Turtle Mother heard of this, she was quite out of patience. "All he cares for," said she, "is just Snapping Turtle, Snapping Turtle, Snapping Turtle. When he is good-natured, he thinks everybody else ought to be; and when he is bad-tempered he doesn't care how other people feel. He will [Pg 114] never be any more agreeable until he does something kind for somebody, and I don't see any chance of that happening."
There came a day, though, when the pond people were glad that the Snapping Turtle lived there. ”

“ The Snapping Turtle saw this. "Jump onto my back," cried he. "You are a light fellow. Hang tight."
Belostoma jumped onto the Snapping Turtle's clay-colored shell, and when he found himself slipping off the back end of it, he stuck his claws into the Snapping Turtle's tail and held on in that way. He knew that he was not easily hurt, even if he did make a fuss when he bumped his head. As soon as they got near the boys, the Snapping Turtle spoke over his back-shell to Belostoma. "Slide off now," said he, "and drive away the smaller boy. Don't stop to talk with these Bloodsuckers." ”

“ The flesh of the snapping-turtle is delicate, tender, and of rich flavor. Every fisherman knows that it will take almost any kind of bait, provided it be of animal substance. It, however, prefers fish, and cannot resist a hook so baited. ”

“ Their sense of hearing is exceedingly acute, and by means of it they often save themselves from their wily enemies the minx, the polecat, and the racoon. The vile snake that creeps into their nest and destroys their 59 eggs, is their most pernicious enemy on land. The young, when on the water, have to guard against the snapping turtle, the gar-fish, and the eel, and in the Southern Districts, against the lashing tail and the tremendous jaws of the alligator. ”

“ This species is very rare, and a curious circumstance is that only very large adults and very small baby individuals have been seen, the turtles of all intermediate growths keeping in the deep ocean out of view.
Snapping turtles are among the fiercest creatures in the world. On leaving the egg their first instinct is to open their mouths and bite at something. They feed on almost anything, but when, in captivity they sometimes refuse to eat, and have been known to go a year without food, showing no apparent ill effects. One method which they employ in capturing their food is interesting. ”

“ They are aquatic and are much like the snapping turtles in habit. Large specimens can do damage with their sharp jaws. They are popularly known as "flap jack turtles," and they do not look unlike large pancakes. They are vicious and can make severe wounds or injuries. ”

“ Two or three men go out in a canoe in smooth water, when the Turtles delight to sleep on the surface, basking in the sun. No sooner is one discovered, than the ready diver plunges into the sea, and coming up silently behind the animal, suddenly seizes the hinder edge of the carapace before it awakes, and pressing down the posterior part of the body in the water, obliges the fore parts to remain upright. Thus the terrified Turtle, now thoroughly awakened, is prevented from diving until the canoe coming up, the bold fisherman and his prey are both taken on board. ”

“ No one knew what caused the newly hatched young of the great sea-turtles to crawl toward the ocean as soon as they had dug their way upward out of the sand within which their eggs are laid, but Dr. Davenport Hooker, of Yale, found that the young turtle is attracted toward the ocean by the blue color of the water. If it sees the ocean through red, yellow or green glass it does not crawl toward it, but if a piece of blue glass, or even blue paper, be placed anywhere within range of its vision the turtle at once scuttles toward it with great excitement. ”

“ When the eggs are carefully placed in separate layers, the loose sand is laid over them, and the hole not only completely hidden but made to look exactly like the rest of the beach, so that no one could ever tell that the surface had been disturbed at all. Then the turtle goes away and leaves the hot sand to do the rest.
In course of time the young turtles, hardly bigger than a five-shilling piece, leave their shells, and make their way to the water, unless, before they are hatched, their nest has been discovered by men, or by the cougars and other wild animals, who feed greedily on them. ”

“ The habits of the turtle are to swim lazily along near the surface of the water, about half immersed, biting and smelling at the various aquatic plants which they pass, and turning their long ungainly necks in all directions. When alarmed by the approach of a native the turtle instantly sinks to the bottom like a stone, and its pursuer, putting out his foot, the toes of which he uses to seize anything, just as we do our fingers, gropes about with it in the weeds, until he feels the turtle, and then, holding it to the ground, plunges his hands and arms in and seizes his prey. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The creature was cunning enough to kill by easy means prey that would otherwise be difficult to overcome, for while crosswise in the snake’s mouth it could not be swallowed, and if put down for an instant the chances of its recapture would be slight.
To suppose that a turtle, as you watch it crawling over the mud, has any sense of humor in its horny head seems absurd; yet naturalists have recorded their being seen at play, and certainly they can readily be tamed to a remarkable degree. ”

“ Nor must it be thought that Nature was cruel to the turtles only to be generous to the other creatures. This very emergency had been amply provided for by the fact that each adult turtle during her annual visit to land deposited as many as one hundred eggs in the hole she carefully scooped in the sand, and had all her offspring survived the rivers would soon be overstocked, constituting a real menace to the perpetuation of the race. So long as the others took their toll, that generation was safe. ”

“ There they lie in every variety of posture; some on their backs, with their white bellies uppermost, some suspended in midwater, some sculling gently along with a dreamy motion of the fins, and others quite active and wide awake,—a scene not unlike what the human city would present. Occasionally he will encounter a turtle selecting the choicest morsels, or a musk-rat resting on a tussuck. He may exercise his dexterity, if he sees fit, on the more distant and active fish, or fork the nearer into his boat, as potatoes out of a pot, or even take the sound sleepers with his hands. ”

“ The common fresh-water turtles have distinct toes, which are webbed and provided with long nails. They are easy and powerful swimmers, but are very helpless on land. They feed upon all kinds of aquatic worms and insects. The tortoises, or land turtles, have short clubbed feet adapted for travelling on the ground, and stout, short claws. They feed upon roots, vegetables, fruit, and small bugs and flies. Their upper shell is more rounded than that of the water turtle. They are capable of swimming, but seldom enter the water. ”

“ There is a long shaft, into the end of which is loosely slipped a movable head. A rope is attached to the head, and a buoy to the other end of the rope. As soon as the reptile is struck, the shaft is disengaged, and is picked up by the thrower; while the float serves as an indication of the turtle’s whereabouts, and enables the hunters to tow it toward the shore.
One of the natives, named Gi’ôm, told Mr. M’Gillivray that they sometimes caught the turtle by means of the remora, or sucking-fish. ”

“ Turtle are kept alive for weeks on board ship, even in the tropics, and all the care that is taken of them consists in placing pillows under their heads, as they lie on their backs on deck—so as to prevent apoplexy, I suppose—and in throwing an occasional bucket of water over them. These creatures seem to be able to do without food for a very long period. We found that we could not employ this method of keeping alive the turtle we caught, for, though we constantly poured buckets of water over them, and shaded them with matting, they could not exist on these blazing sands ”

“ These large turtles, which in other parts of South America are called “arraus,” or simply “tortugas,” assemble every year in large armies, from all parts of the river. Each one of these armies chooses for itself a place to breed—some sandy island, or great sand-bank. This they approach very cautiously—lying near it for some days, and reconnoitring it with only their heads above the water. They then crawl ashore at night in vast multitudes—just as the party saw them—and each turtle, with the strong crooked claws of her hind feet, digs a hole for herself in the sand. ”

“ In fact, the alligators and crocodiles not only eat the young of the turtles, but their own young as well. That is, the old males do; and it has been stated, that the males of some species of tortoises have a similar unnatural appetite.
The turtle of which we are speaking is one of the most carnivorous of the whole race, and one of the fiercest in its nature too; so much so, that it has earned the name of the “fierce tortoise.” It will eat fish and small crustacea, and almost any living thing it finds in the water, which is not too large for it. It is extremely expert in catching its prey. ”

“ The final privilege is often that of being suddenly snapped up by a turtle or a snake: for Nature brings forth her creatures liberally, especially the aquatic ones, sacrifices nine-tenths of them as food for their larger cousins, and reserves only a handful to propagate their race, on the same profuse scale, next season. ”

“ It is only taken at night when depositing its eggs in the sand, as the sharpness of the margin of its shell renders it dangerous to attempt to turn it in the water--indeed even the green turtle, with a comparatively rounded margin to the carapace, occasionally, in struggling to escape, inflicts deep cuts on the inner side of the leg of its captor, of which I myself have seen an instance. ”

“ When grazing the turtles eat only the roots, the tops thus rising to the surface, where they indicate to the turtler the animal's whereabouts. The turtler, armed with a strong steel barb attached to a rope and loosely fitted to the end of a pole, carefully rows up to the unsuspecting animal, and with a strong thrust plunges the barb through its shell, withdraws the pole, and, grasping the rope, now firmly attached to the turtle's back, lifts the animal to the surface. ”

“ The natives take large numbers of the former; indeed, from the month of November till February turtle forms their principal food. The green turtle are taken in the water by the blacks, who display great address in "turning" them; they are approached when asleep on the surface; the black slips gently from his canoe and disappears under water, and rising beneath the animal, by a sudden effort turns it on its back, and by a strong wrench to the fore flipper disables it from swimming. The fisherman is assisted by his companions in the canoe, and a line is secured to the turtle. ”

“ The fisherman is just letting the line run deliberately through his hand to draw the booty up to him, when some monster, probably of unearthly origin, dashes at his fine, large turtle. It is only a common snake, after all, though an unusually large one, and the old man is not going to give up his spoil so tamely, but is holding on to the line for all he is worth. ”

“ The life of the turtles and fresh water tortoises is a lively one in comparison to that of the land species. Instead of the short and misshapen legs that serve the purposes of locomotion to the latter, they are furnished with paddles that enable them to swim with great rapidity, and were it not for their sleeping habits, and for the necessity for the females to go ashore to lay their eggs, man would have but few opportunities of enjoying turtle soup, for their speed is far greater than that at which any boat could be rowed. ”

“ Most of the young Mud Turtles crawled quickly out of the sand and broken shells, and began drying themselves in the sunshine. One slow little fellow stopped to look at the broken [Pg 84] shells, stubbed one of his front toes on a large piece and then sat down until it should stop aching. "Wait for me!" he called out to his brothers and sisters. "I'm coming in a minute."
The other little Turtles waited, but when his toe was comfortable again and he started toward them, he met a very interesting Snail and talked a while with him. "Come on," said the Biggest Little Turtle. ”

“ The inhabitants of the Bahama Isles, catch many turtles at a considerable distance from the shore; they strike them with a spear, the head of which slips off when it has entered the body of the turtle, but it is fastened by a string to the pole, and by means of this apparatus they are able to secure them, and either take them into the boat or haul them on shore. ”