The Monticellonian., 1915-07-01

tuOSe or the Sndpplng turtle are per fectly round. They are just about one inch in diameter and have a stiff. parchmentlike shell of a creamy white or pinkish color. A friend tells me that he has eaten them as a boy, and to the omniyorous appetite of youth they were very we'll favored. Although the dawn of motherly affection is to be seen in animals much lower in the scale of life than the snapping turtle, these latter are entirely devoid of the maternal instinct, and after depositing their eggs they leave them to be matched out by the heat of the sun, and take no further interest in them whatever
 Three nests that I examined, and for observation purposes designated Nos. 1, and 3. contained 31, 45 and 49 eggs respectively. Another nest, No. f. was found later to contain none but infertile eggs.
 The eggs in nest No. 1 were depos- ited during the night of June 11-f2, the others between June 13 and June 16. y On July 30 the embryos in nest No. were perfectly formed. but were small and quite colorless except for the dark eye spots. By August 19 they had as- sumed the black coloration peculiar to the immature young. but there was still a quantity of the yolk of tie egg to be absorbed On September s the yolk was nearly all gone. and on Sep tember 12 the young were out of the shells-an incubation period of exact ly three months. They all however, remained buried in the sand, and those l dug up began to burrow again as soon as l laid them down. They were thickly smeared with egg matter and damp sand, but when washed clean appeared as stout little jet black crea- lures. with ridged and tubercled cara paces about one and a quarter inches long. and quite soft as yet. When their heads were drawn in they looked remarkably like large pickled walnuts. They seemed to be ignorant of the "kultur" praetieed by their elders and made no attempt to bite. A couple of them l brought home could not be in duced to eat anything and persisted in burying themselves in the damp sand with which their box was provided Nest No ? matched out about Septem- Der 23. but about one-third of the eggs were infertile.
 As in the case of nest No 1, the young made no attempt to leave the sand, and it seemed evident that they intended to spend the winter there for on September 24 the young of nest No 1, matched twelve days before, were still buried. As the thermometer not infrequently goes down to 30 de- grees below zero here, l was looking forward with interest to see how the young turtles would stand the intense winter cold, for they were certainly not below the frost line; but at this point my investigations were arrested
 In July and August I had several times noticed skunk tracks on the beach. and knowing the marauding habits of this animal felt somewhat uneasy for my turtle eggs. But at this time they escaped, for there was TO visible mark on the surface of the sand to reveal the position of the nests, and before the young emerge the unbroken eggs have no smell that could give the skunk clue But when the young come out they have a strong odor that quickly betrays them to the enemy, even through six inches or one foot of covering sand. And so on Sep tember 25 skunk discovered nest No. 1 and ate all the young turtles. The raider also ate all the infertile eggs of nest No. 4, and dug up and destroyed two other nests near by. which had not known of before.